How Do Singing Bowls Work On Physical and Emotional Pain? Ways To Use Singing Bowls For Pain
Whether you’re suffering emotional or spiritual pain, every type of pain can be an uncomfortable experience.
Moreover, chronic pain isn’t just a physical issue because it affects your mind, life, career, and spirit when left untreated.
Like acupuncture, nutrition, and dietary alternatives, scientific studies prove that sound also reduces pain.
So, how do singing bowls work on physical and emotional pain?
That’s what we’ll find out with the help of published scientific papers on sound therapy. Stay tuned until the very end to understand it fully!
DISCLAIMER: The content shared in this article isn’t aimed to substitute any ongoing treatments, medicines, or medical advice. We urge you to read through with a rational mind to supplement your lifestyle and speak with your health care professionals about using singing bowls as part of your therapy to cope with chronic pain.
How Do Singing Bowls Work On Pain: What Does Science Say?
Pain is a signal captured by your nervous system. It implies something is wrong in your body with a tingling, pricking, pinching, throbbing, burning, stabbing, stinging, or cramping sensation.
And healing physical pain with sound isn’t a new therapeutic approach. When you’re feeling better by listening to your favorite song at a time of agony or mental pain, you’re essentially healing yourself with sound vibrations.
Apart from the emotional relief you feel, your heartbeat and respiratory rate go down. That’s followed by blood pressure and a decrease in stress hormones (adrenaline, cortisol), and an increase in happy hormones (serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine).
Doesn’t that make you wonder how sound waves lead to such a widespread physiological effect? All of it happens thanks to frequencies, as we learned recently.
How Does Pain Relief With Singing Bowls Work?
We discussed how sound impacts the body in a recent series of articles.
Today, we’ll talk about how singing bowls specifically alleviate physical pain.
Singing bowls improve pain management in a variety of ways.
When a sound bowl vibrates, it emanates frequencies capable of changing the frequency of your brain waves.
Most studies show singing bowl sounds can put us in the Alpha brain wave state.
Now, hold on to that thought.
According to a study published in the Medical News Daily, a team of scientists assessed the brain wave state of Alpha while administering a burn reaction from capsaicin to participants.
They found participants who felt higher pain had slower alpha brain wave frequency, unlike those with higher frequency. Moreover, “those whose alpha waves increased during the pain reported less pain than those whose alpha waves dropped off.”
Based on our pain, our brain also secretes hormones like cortisol that increase stress and anxiety.
And when the pain isn’t relieved, it turns into irritability, anger, hopelessness, and frustration.
So, singing bowls help you think clearly without pain clouding your mind. Moreover, they also help you tap into the nervous system to decrease stress, anxiety, muscle tension, high blood pressure, and agony.
Actually, the sound bowl relieves the aftereffects of pain or its awareness than the pain itself.
In short, singing bowls target our emotional reaction to pain that, when unmanaged, can hurt us more. So, singing bowls prevent the pain from amplifying.
According to this 2015 study, “vibroacoustic or physioacoustic therapy stimulates the mechanoreceptors in the body and cellular structures more deeply, thereby potentially serving to block pain transmission.”
Here’s an excerpt from another study published in NCBI about the effects of the singing bowl on pain.
How To Use Singing Bowls For Pain Relief?
Singing bowls can improve meditation by heightening focus and concentration and sleep by helping you wind down at the end of the day. And now you know how they work for pain relief.
In the words of Sue Ingebretson, health coach and fibromyalgia patient- “ As I was writing my book, FibroWHYalgia *, I discovered the non-verbal soothing sounds of singing bowls made things click for me.”
You can use simple techniques to manage pain with singing bowls. Why? They work quite like vibroacoustic therapy!
Read more about it in our article on 10 therapeutic uses of sound next!
Hence, the harmonics of a singing bowl will cleanse energies blocking specific chakras and associated body parts.
Moreover, the sound of singing bowls can also be uplifting for self-esteem as it calms down the nerves to fills you with confidence.
So how do you use the singing bowl the right way? You can play your favorite bowl daily or when you’re in pain to reduce the aftereffects such as restlessness, stress, frustration, and agony that come from it. Here’s our in-depth tutorial on how and why to use a Tibetan bowl.
Most importantly, you should find a technique that feels soothing and tranquilizing to you, whether striking or rubbing motions.
You can try mixing essential oils like bergamot for neuropathic pain and lavender for hypersensitive persons (HSP) in a diffuser when you play the bowl to enhance healing.
Alternatively, you can dab pain management essential oils too. These are- peppermint, marjoram, eucalyptus, rosemary, yarrow, chamomile, clary sage, juniper, or clove.
Getting Started With Singing Bowls For Relieving Pain
Frederic Nietzsche said- “we listen to music with our muscles.” I believe that’s a clever way to understand how sound affects our bodies.
From Ayurveda to yoga, meditation, and aromatherapy, there are several ways alternative healing already works on the body. With sound being a proven mechanism to do the same, it brings out even more obvious positive changes.
Above all, singing bowls are already used for deep relaxation and pain management for joints and muscles. If you dig deep, there are even studies that talk in length about how it helps with metabolism, digestion, sciatica, headaches, injuries, and tensions. The best thing is sound can induce body-wide pain management instead of just a single point.
Spiritually, sound bowls are closely linked with the chakras in the body. Hence, Tibetan bowls flush out negativity from seven primary chakras and charge it.
If you’ve found pain relief, whether physical or emotional, don’t hesitate to share it with our community. We would love to know your thoughts on the subject!
