Chakras and Sound

In Hinduism, Chakras are the "wheels" or centers of energy located along the midline of the body. The concepts have since spread around the globe, and many alternative therapies recognize their power. While the number of chakras is debatable, most will agree that there are seven major ones, and several smaller ones. Each governs a different area of life or even nature. Each corresponds with a certain color, a function, an emotion, and yes, a sound.

When the chakras are in a state of disharmony, energy flow becomes blocked or 'closed'. This energy, or 'prana' can powerfully affect all areas of life. Often compared to spinning flowers or lotus', the chakras can be felt in the body from root to crown. Sadly, many people are cut off from their bodies, from experiencing the energy moving through it. Our bodies shut down in defense after traumas, or our worlds demand a desensitized self. Attending to these blocks can happen in all sorts of ways. The goal is to open the chakra and free the blocked energy, evolving to a new state of consciousness and experience.

This site claims their chakra test can reveal your body blockages, while others suggest using a pendulum to seek out imbalances. I think that it really depends on the person and some e-quiz won't tell you much. This being a sound healing blog, lets explore the chakras for each sound. Its been done before, and below are videos which will walk us through the experience. Did it work for you? As I'm finding out, sound is inescapable. It can penetrate us to the core and beyond. So much of it is white noise, gossip, bogus .. what a fresh breath of air to hear intentional stuff.

(Side note: Judith Anodea wrote this book "Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to Self" that is really great. As the name suggests, it compares the chakra system to the models of psychological development created by Maslow and others. It's got lovely diagrams but I can't find them to post online.. ah well..)



I'm loving this one, Mom or not! Its a nice meditation that has a diagram if you need a basic understanding of how energy can flow through the body.

sources and other good articles:
http://becominghanuman.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/chakras-rationalism-and-science/
http://cowabungalifestyles.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/deep-chakra-cleansing-meditation/

This website has a feature which lets you roll over the Chakra to hear the note: http://www.soundessence.net/chakras.php

This website focuses on the didgeridoo for its healing qualities, but also has quite a bit of information on each Chakra:
http://www.didgetherapy.com/chakras_didgeridoo_sound.html

Tom Kenyon: Mind Gymnastics

I was able to talk my dear friend Katie into listening to another Tom Kenyon track. This time, it was the first track off of his "Mind Gymnastics" CD. I personally found this track to be challenging and unnerving. Tom Kenyon guides the listeners through a different exercise in visualization. We are encouraged to visualize numbers and colors, a task which may sound simple but really is challenging for a person not used to such abstract concepts. For me, the track pushed my boundaries. I guess I didn't feel safe enough to trust Kenyon, or perhaps just uneasy about my own blocks, but I wasn't able to follow through with the entire thing. I actually got some really intense anxiety during the track, and had to 'abandon ship' and just listen with my eyes open.

Katie had a similar experience. While she didn't get anxiety like I did, she found herself confronting her own blocks, not being able to "let it all in", or let herself go. She shared that her visualizations stayed positive though, unlike mine, which got a bit messed up with fearful thoughts. She pushed herself to really engage with the activity, and liked the structure of the track.

Katie and I both felt that this CD (well, the first track alone!) was the most intense of the ones we've reviewed. Maybe not for amateurs, but engaging and challenging for anyone.

Review: Tom Kenyon's "Ultimate Performance"

As I posted earlier, a good friend (and sport!) volunteered to listen to some of Tom Kenyon's CD's while she was staying with me this week. Katie and I put on the first track of "Ultimate Performance", part of Kenyon's "Ultimate Brain" collection. Below is our review and responses.

While we both sat down to listen a bit distracted, with things on our mind, we thoroughly enjoyed this CD. Some of Kenyon's tracks are very focused with orders and exercises, and some are just the opposite: open and breezy. This first track on "Ultimate Performance" fell somewhere in the middle. His visualizations exercises were open enough for us, although instead easily visualizing a resolved problem in the future, Katie's thoughts drifted more to the past. The track guides the listener to envision an issue in their life, and then envision its resolution in great detail. I found it to be inspirational, especially since I have some future goals that I have been wanting to flush out in my mind's eye. It created a warm, loving environment for me to nurture these little seeds of thoughts, although Katie wasn't quite so impressed. We both rated it at about a "3" on the instensity scale (10 being heart-attack intense). I would definitely recommend listening to this CD if you have some unresolved issues or anxiety about current challenges in your life.

Review: Tom Kenyon's "Ultimate Relaxation"

I've been listening to several of Tom Kenyon's CD's for the past few weeks, and this week, I partook in an experiment with a friend. While it was in no way 'scientific', it was interesting to listen with a friend and record our experiences.

Tom Kenyon's "Ultimate Relaxation" CD is part of his "Ultimate Brain" CD collection. I really enjoy this disc, and have been listening to it as I fall asleep for weeks! It did make quite a difference to listen to it consciously, though. My friend Katie and I both reported to be a bit flustered or preoccupied before listening to the disc, just so you know.

Also, we just listened to the first track off the disc, and then recorded our experience afterwards.

For this disc, both Katie and I felt that Tom Kenyon's voice was initially a bit off-putting. Sometimes it can be hard to follow the commands of someone, especially if that someone is a white male you've never met. Still, we both warmed up to his voice and became incredibly tranquil. Katie felt that her own analytical mind was getting in the way of her experience, and I couldn't help but feel the same. Going from listening consciously to this track was a much more challenging experience than just putting it on before bed. It made me a little nervous to hear with "new ears", so to speak, what I had been listening to unconsciously for weeks. Still, Kenyon guides the listener on a quiet visualization of a peaceful, comforting fantasy place. His gentleness toward the listener allowed for guilt-free mind-wandering and took the guilt out of straying from a meditative experience. We both feel that this track was appropriate for most, and had a low intensity level.

Profile: Leigh Ann Phillips, Sound Healing Practioner

When I met Leigh Ann Phillips a few years ago, I never would have thought that I would find myself under her spell of sounds and harmonics. Leigh Ann is a therapist who utilizes Quartz Crystal Singing Bowls and vocal toning for sound healing. I spoke with her last February, gaining insight into her work through both an interview and a personal session with her and her bowls.

As a seasoned patron of alternative therapies, I have tried the gamut. Biofeedback, massage therapy (and its many branches), Ayurvedic traditions, acupressure and aromatherapy. But sound is the one branch of alternative medicine I had not experienced or studied, and I feel blessed to have met Leigh Ann for this reason. On her website, www.leighannphillips.com, she describes the typical session with her bowls and how they work :

“Sound can be a direct path for shifting consciousness for the better allowing greater intelligence deeper relaxation, less stress, and more creativity”.

“We have the capability of improving our health and well being dramatically by using and understanding the power of sound. Sound healing is a direct path to establishing new neurological networks that create the conditions for increased happiness and health. Because we literally hear with our skin- not just our eardrums – we literally “feel” music and it can be transformative on many levels”.

Leigh Ann Philips works with sound to heal past traumas and to free trapped emotions. As a therapist, she feels that her quartz crystal bowls convey sound messages that are unique to the client’s personal needs. For many therapists, projection is a delicate matter, and they must be careful not to project their opinions onto the susceptible client. Leigh Ann feels that working with the bowls creates a 3^rd party for the experience. The bowls become the vehicle for healing, taking the judgement and projection out of the session and creating a unique relationship with the client. After the session, she’ll share what her interpretation of the bowls has been (if that is what the client desires) but also allow space for the client to sit with their own understandings. She feels that especially for people who live mostly in their rational, left-brain worlds, the bowls give patients the emotional, non-logical right-brain experience they may want.

The history behind synthetic quartz crystal bowls began with their accomplished inventor, Marcel Vogel. Read more about the man behind the sound here.

Personally, I can attest to the profundity of experiencing Leigh Ann's bowls. The sound reverberates through your entire being, so no muscle or fiber is left untouched by the music. Simultaneously, the sound surrounds you, especially since the bowls are played directly on the body. If I could have, I would've tried to open my eyes and grasp the multitasking nature of this therapy. Leigh Ann plays more than one bowl at a time, switches them out and also incorporates her own lovely voice when appropriate.

In all honesty, though, it was nearly impossible to stay objective during this experience, and I really didn't want to. The sound was intoxicating and I wanted to lose myself in it, to feel without judgment or opinion. It took me to a place that not even the most psychedelic concert could've. I was sensing and sensitive to it while it washed over me. Once the music ceased, I found myself facing a troubling understanding of how much I take for granted the power of sound. Leigh Ann shared that this post-session period of silence was the most important for integration, and I agree.

The silence that followed the session was testament to how profound and infinite sound is. It continues to move and affect us even after our ears cannot register it. And it was during the absence of it, after the session, that I began to integrate what it meant to me, how it resonated within my body, and how good it felt to be surrounded and filled by it. This may be due, in part, to the brain state it imparted upon me- Delta and Alpha waves at work! I left feeling more connected to my body- after having sound penetrate me it seemed to leave no stone within me unturned. I also left from that experience recognizing how careless I can be with my own sounds- the words I may not always mean and the meaningless sounds I constantly take in, through radio and tv, gossip and baloney.

Leigh Ann has found several benefits to experiencing Crystal Bowl Sound Healing.

These include:

Increases intelligence

Increases problem solving

Increases Creativity

Increases Wellness

Encourages Emotional releases

Encourages Somatic work

Types of pure Gems and Minerals used in Leigh Ann’s Synthetic quartz crystal bowls:

Rose Quartz + Laughing Buddha (iron and cobalt)

Grandfather – iron- solid sound

Vanilla Quartz – ultra thin

Silver- Feminine Inward

Ocean Gold

Iron- Gutamala

Sedona Vortex- redrock – rhicker

Clear Quartz

Muldevite- titic (meteorite)

Tibetan Bowls

Charcoal – clears emotional and physical toxicity

Diamond – like a laser – pinpointed for trouble areas

Emerald – high heart and compassion

Gold – yang energy powerful in Egyption alchemy

Vanadium – Also in Egyptian Alchemy

Amethyst- merge spirit and heart

Common powerful protective

Indium – digestive trace element

Morganite- lungs and grieving

Ryvy – blood circulation heart

Rose Quartz- emotional heart (with Platinum)

Black tourmaline – detox protection

Lepidolite and lithium for depression

Kyanite – Soft divinity

Pheancyte- most electrical strone on planet

Serpentine – Earthy

Yagna – Karma Clearing

Azeztalite – high frequency

Imperial Topaz

Learn More about Leigh Ann and the power of her crystal bowls at www.LeighAnnPhillips.com

Evidence of Sound Healing

“Since the human body is over seventy percent water and since sound travels five times more efficiently through water than through air, sound frequency stimulation directly into the body is a highly efficient means for total body stimulation, especially at the cellular level. Direct stimulation of living cellular tissue using sound frequency vibration has shown marked cellular metabolism and therefore a possible mobilization of a cellular healing response.” P. 141 – Jeffrey Thompson, D.C.

From Mitchell L. Gaynor's : Sounds of Healing

Physiological changes that music can create:

-Reduced anxiety, heart and respiratory rates: Forty patients who had suffered recent heart attacks were exposed to 'relaxing music', then assessed for heart rate, respiratory rate, and measurable states of anxiety. Results indicated statistically significant reductions in all three measures which suggested to researchers that the use of music may be an effective way to reduce high levels of anxiety among heart patients.

-Reduced cardiac complications: Cathy Guzzetta reported that among patients who had been recently admitted to a coronary care unit after suffering heart attacks, those who were exposed to music for two days had fewer complications than those who were not.

-Lowered blood pressure: A 1989 study reported that systolic blood pressure was significantly reduced in nine subjects who listened to two albums, both of which had average beats of fewer than 55 hertz (the number of cycles per second at which a sound wave vibrates): Essence: Crystal Meditations, an album for piano and synthesizer composed by Don Campbell, and Timeless Lullaby, by Daniel Kobialka.

-Reduced blood pressure and heart rate: Other experiments that used recordings of varying musical styles suggest that both systolic and diastolic blood pressure may be lowered by as much as five points (mm/Hg) per listening session. Heart rates may decrease by four to five beats per minute.

-Blood pressure and excessive noise: Conversely, too much noise, which can set off the fight-or-flight response, can increase blood pressure by as much as 10 percent.

-Reduced blood pressure, heart rate, and noise sensitivity in heart surgery patients: Researchers examined whether listening to music could calm the nervous system and thus facilitate recovery among post surgical cardiac patients in noisy critical care units. Forty patients, both those who were shown to be highly sensitive to noise and those who exhibited less sensitivity, were tested the day after surgery for heart rate and arterial blood pressure following fifteen-minute periods during which music was played in the unite. The conclusion of this 1997 study was that 'use of a music intervention with cardiac surgery patients during the first postoperative day decreased noise annoyance, heart rate, and systolic blood pressure, regardless of the subject's noise sensitivity."

-Increased immune cell messengers: A 1993 report by scientists at Michigan State University disclosed that levels of interleukin-1 (an immune-cell messenger molecule that helps to regulate the activity of other immune cells) increased by 12.5 to 14 percent when subjects listened to music for fifteen-minute periods. Participants who listened to music they themselves preferred-whether Mozart, light jazz, 'New Age' or impressionist such as Ravel- exhibited up to 25 percent lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that can depress the immune system when produced in excess. This finding led researchers to conclude that music of one's own choosing ' may elicit a profound positive emotional experience that can trigger the release of hormones which can contribute to a lessening of those factors which enhance the disease process."

-Boost in natural opiates: In an experiment conducted at the Addiction Research Center in Standford, California, subjects listened to various kinds of music, including marching bands, spiritual anthems, and movie soundtracks. Half of the subjects reported feelings of euphoria while listening, leading the researchers to suspect that the joy of music is mediated by the opiate chemicals known as endorphins-the brain's natural painkillers. To test this theory, investigators injected listeners with nalaxone, which blocks opiate receptors. The listeners experienced reduced sensations of pleasure, suggesting that certain types of music can boost endorphins, which have other health benefits- including a stronger immune system.

On top of these physiological examples, anecdotal evidence abounds within the field of Sound Healing. See these links for more!

http://healing.about.com/od/sound/a/kmucci_music.htm
http://www.david-howes.com/senses/snow_soundhealing.html

Brain States

It would be a bit foolish of me to go on about Sound Healing without considering the role of brain states.

On one of his CD's for "The Ultimate Brain", respected Sound Healer Tom Kenyon describes the behavior of a brain wave. He uses the example of standing on a cliff, looking out at waves on the ocean. From above, you can see the top of one wave and differentiate it from the next. Like the waves in the ocean, brain waves are also measured by their frequencies. These frequencies are based upon cycles per seconds, or hertz (abbreviated Hz). . Depending upon how quickly these waves are moving, they are classified into 4 main categories. The frequencies are measured by attaching electrodes to someone's head, and utilizing a device called an electroencephalogram (EEG). The EEG measures the electromagnetic field coming off of clusters of brain cells, which are pulsing at different speeds. Again, it is the speed or frequencies of these cells which determines which brain state is engaged.

The four main categories of brain states are Delta, Alpha, Beta, and Theta.



Delta is the slowest of the brain states. A delta wave is usually measured between .5 and 4 cycles per second or Hz, and the brain state correlated with it is one of deep sleep and unconsciousness.

Theta is next, with waves measuring between 4 and 7 Hz. This is the dream state of REM sleep (dreams), lucid dreaming, hypnosis and the barely conscious state just before sleeping and just after waking. Theta is correlated with the internal experience.

Alpha brain waves are measured at 7-13 Hz, and occur during deep relaxation and meditation. When in alpha, a person is relaxed, yet aware of the external world. It is said that this brain state is common to those who meditate, but also arises for athletes when they fall into "the zone". It is a tranquil state of mind and an important state for healing and creativity.

Beta is the brain state corresponding with external engagement, or daily life. Usually measured between 13-40 Hz, Beta waves reflect a state where energy is directed outward. Normal waking consciousness, problem solving and thinking usually take place during beta states.

A fifth stage, Gamma, is measured at 40+ Hz, and is the state of hyper-alertness, and perception, but usually it is the first four states which are focused upon.


Many artists, musicians and healers have utilized brain states to induce these different levels of consciousness. Usually, it is theta and alpha which are considered for their therapeutic value, although a person must have enough alpha activity in order to reach these states. Indeed, there are often multiple states in action at once, depending upon which part of the brain is being measured.

Tom Kenyon considers alpha and theta states to be a "magic window", citing research which has shown stress levels to drop during these states. Blood pressure, stress hormones and heart rate all have been seen to drop during alpha and theta states. The rhythmic waves of these states suggest that the body spontaneously goes into a self-healing mode.









sources for info. and graphics:
http://www.web-us.com/brainwavesfunction.htm
http://www.formulaformiracles.net/brain-waves.html
Tom Kenyon's "The Ultimate Brain"
Jeffrey Campbell's " The Power of Sound"