What is the practice of Sound Healing & Brain-Tapping?

What is Sound Healing?

Sound healing, also known as ASMR (auto sensory meridian response), is an ancient practice that has been used to improve mental, physical, and emotional health.

There are different types of sound healing, including vibrational therapy, which uses vibrations from gongs and tuning forks to relax the mind and body.

One of the most popular methods today is binaural beats, also known as brainwave entrainment or brain-tapping. This method uses auditory stimulation to synchronize and balance brainwaves, aligning with the beat’s frequency. 

Meditation and Music are two powerful tools for our holistic health and helping us work through difficult emotions and pain. Each can also help us focus and even guide us along the path of “rewiring our brains.”

If you are a regular around here, you know that I am very passionate about guiding us along the healing journey and finding our inner peace, our inner light.

Constantly in search of songs, books, methods of meditation, journaling, and prayer. For my own education, healing, and, of course, to share the wonderful goodness that I find with you!

Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Patrick Porter, Ph.D., a neuroscience expert. And in today’s article, he shares with us the science behind ASMR and Sound Healing.

After the interview, I signed up for the free trial from BrainTap, and I am in love with this app! I kid you not – the sessions help me focus, and I feel rejuvenated afterward! Let’s jump right in so we can get you excited about this healing process, too!

What is BrainTapping?

Braintapping guides your mind from an awake, reactionary mind into an intuitive, creative state, then to a place where super-learning and healing can occur, with the outcome being a heightened state of consciousness with crystal clear focus.

braintap.com

Our Interview –

Thank you for your time, today doctor. I would love to give our readers a baseline – can you please briefly explain Sound Healing and how it works?

I think the best example of sound healing is from back in the ’70s; they had something called the “Mozart effect.” They found out that when the students listened to this music, it balanced their brains’ chemistry, and it actually showed that they could become smarter – they were testing better. And now, through the evolution of these studies, they have also found out that because our bodies are made up of mostly water, through sound, we can restructure that water.

Dr. Porter

Dr. Porter also referenced studies by Dr. Masaru Emoto. Dr. Emoto learned that you could change the water structure in our brains and bodies by using music and specific sound frequencies. 

We have two sides of the brain, the parasympathetic side and the survival side. We only heal when we are in parasympathetic mode – so we need to turn off the survival mode. And this music, these sound frequencies, does just that.

Dr. Porter

How can sound improve physical health?

The ocean’s sound – we hear the waves, and the waves have a frequency – that’s the kind of music we are talking about.  Our nervous system is adaptable, and we have discovered that certain frequencies, tones, and styles of music put the body into parasympathetic. When in parasympathetic mode, the body knows it is time to heal.

It [this music/these frequencies] also helps us to rid interference. There is a lot of noise in the world, and we have to get to the point where there is no longer noise, or we can simply tune out the noise around us. When there is interference, our brains block the healing because of these negative sounds.

Dr. Porter

So, the sounds that we need to seek are higher-frequency sounds that will slow everything down, correct?

Yes, that’s why folks enjoy going to the symphony, and at least one-third of the audience will have a calming effect from the music, but they don’t even know why, and they cannot maintain this effect because they have never practiced it.  But that’s why they will pay over $150 per ticket because they want that relaxation – they want that feeling of calm that the music gives them. These frequencies are affecting their brain.

Dr. Porter

Dr. Porter also mentioned a current study in Miami, Florida, where they studied dolphins, measuring their brain’s size and sound frequencies.  They are actually getting into the water while working with the dolphins!

Is there an “exercise” or a sound “treatment” that would help someone with lower back pain?  Is there a specific sound wave, frequency, or type of music?

The BrainTap app has sessions with unique tones or frequencies needed to get the brain out of beta – beta is our everyday reactionary mind. The more beta a person has, the more pain they have.

When we put on this particular type of music, which happens to be the mid-range of alpha, it turns on the “feel-good” parts of your brain. It also helps to trigger the healing parts of your brain – and you begin to manufacture ways to fight against the pain.

That’s why in waiting rooms, they have relaxing music playing, it calms us down – and the neurochemicals in our brain adapt or mimic the environment.

In contrast, if you play hard-rock music, the brain might become agitated, you may also feel that you want to move. This type of music is great to play when you want to exercise.

Dr. Porter

Are there other problems/issues that sound treatment can “cure” or aid in someone’s healing process?

We don’t really use the word ‘cure’ in our practice, but the symptoms are alleviated.

The main areas where we see users benefit:

1.) Stress Reduction

These sound frequencies help you get into the right cycle and program the brain into a deeper sleep mode.  If you listen to a session for about 20 minutes as you drift off to sleep, it helps lift and remove the stress from the day – it actually offloads your stress.

If you don’t discharge the stress or worry from the day before going to sleep, then you could wake up just as stressed as you were when you went to sleep. Discharging the energy that you have built up – they call this ‘grounding.’

2.) Learning is the next benefit

Your learning is going to receive a significant effect from these sessions – when the brain is in a state in between sleep and awake, you are in Hypnagogia – or ‘hyper-memory.’ This allows for someone’s ‘inner-genius’ to come out.

Dr. Porter

So, the practice doesn’t necessarily make someone smarter, but these sessions help to open up the brain and release what is clouding the mind and allow the person to focus.

Correct, we just finished a study in India. They picked a frequency to study ‘brain speed.’  Think of brain speed like you would computer speed – how fast can you think, how quickly do you process data, how fast can you problem solve?

The study showed a 22% improvement in brain speed after just one session, but this needs to be framed and practiced as it usually takes between 30 and 45 days to train the brain and “teach” it a new algorithm.

The brain is adaptive and learns over time. You give your brain the triggers, and then over a period of time (usually 30-45 days), it comes to memorize those triggers.

When we are practicing this exercise, it takes spaced repetition. Every 72 hours, the nervous system will try to re-set the brain back to the neurological norm, and we want to interrupt that pattern and introduce a new pattern. Over time the brain will adapt and eventually will accept that ‘this is my new normal.’

Dr. Porter

Please share any at-home wellness tips using the BrainTap App.

Yes, please remember that someone cannot expect a dramatic change after just one 10-minute session.

The BrainTap app has several series of sessions, which can be practiced separately or within the series by playing one each day. Some of the sessions are just sounds or frequencies, and some are guided sessions.

Use headphones – either your own or our specially designed BrainTap Headset.

And enjoy!

Dr. Porter

What a Fantastic Tool to add to our Toolbox!

You have provided us with the science and benefits behind the Sound Healing practice.

Equipping us with examples of how these sound frequencies can help us learn better, improve our emotional health, and the most important reminder to put a timer on and listen to the special sound frequency 20 minutes before going to bed to discharge the stress from our day.

Do you have anything else you’d like to add to help my readers understand this practice better?

What I think is so amazing, is that this healing has been used since the dawn of time and now, because we all carry around our own mini-stereo systems in our cell phones, we can practice this anywhere.  It used to only be available around a campfire or a drum-circle, and now, everybody can create their own music medicine directory!

Dr. Porter

BrainTap provides us with an easy option for holistic health. Using sounds and music you have provided a way for us to create a better mindset, habits, and a better us. Thank you, Dr. Porter!

Dr. Patrick K. Porter, Ph.D., is an award-winning author and speaker who has devoted his career to neuroscience and brainwave entrainment. As the creator of BrainTap Technology™, Porter has emerged as a leader in the digital health and wellness field. BrainTap’s digital tools and mind development apps use Creative Visualization and Relaxation, a biohacking technique that has made tremendous advances in helping mental, physical, and emotional health issues. BrainTap has been praised for helping people relieve symptoms associated with stress, insomnia, pain, and much more. 

Sound Healing isn’t new. It’s been used for centuries to help restore balance to the body. It can improve many facets of your life, including emotional development, cognition, and functioning. It’s also known to reduce stress and bolster the immune system.

Dr. Patrick K. Porter, Ph.D

Until next time … Peace and Blessings, Friends!

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