Siouxland Magazine - Volume 3 Issue 5

These days, our busy, fast-paced world seems to exist in
a primarily Beta state of consciousness. Our brains work
quickly within these frequencies while we work at our jobs
or school, check off to-do lists, and put dinner on the table
for our families. These are important aspects of our lives, but
any overused state of consciousness causes imbalances.
For instance, excessive Beta activity typically presents as
excessive stress. This can manifest itself as chronic pain or
fatigue and can even affect how we see ourselves and our
world, contributing to states of dis-ease like depression
and anxiety. Shifting states of consciousness in our day-today
helps lift the stress of living in a primarily Beta or stress
dominant state where we tend to identify too strongly with
our thoughts and to-do lists. Accessing the deeper levels
of consciousness that exist at slower frequencies (Alpha,
Theta, Delta) enables us to live more fully as our truest and
purest selves rather than as our stressed and overused
thought patterns and belief systems.
There are countless ways to visit different levels of
consciousness like meditation, breathing exercises,
and even sleep. However, I am here to show you the
alternatives in alternative medicine. First, it will help you
to understand a bit about entrainment, which means
falling into synchronicity. For example, Christian Huygens
discovered that his pendulum clocks would start off-beat
from each other but eventually entrain to the same rhythm.
Similarly brainwaves can entrain with external frequencies
like sound waves. The practice of sound therapy utilizes
sound waves to shift our brain activity to the slowed down
and chilled-out Theta or Delta frequencies. This can be
especially true when the sounds are presented in a certain
manner such as binaurally. When two different frequencies
interact in this way, the brain perceives the difference in
frequency, which can be as low as 4-7 Hertz. As mentioned
previously, this is the actual range of Theta brainwaves and
below the range of human hearing. So, amazingly, our
brains perceive a sound lower than our ears can actually
hear! To boot, our brains and, consequently, our bodies
achieve a deeply relaxed and healing state. Ancient
medicine and technology combine to provide several ways
to bear witness to these sorts of sounds and phenomena.
Recipients take in unfiltered healing frequencies with a
sound bath.
• Sound baths are just that. When we allow our bodies to
rest fully and bathe in the hypnotic frequencies formed by
Tibetan singing bowls, crystal singing bowls, or gongs, our
brains have all they need to entrain these frequencies and
deliver the relaxation response to our bodies. Brian David
Gilbert offers crystal bowl sound baths regularly in the
community either through the Mind & Body Connection
or at a local park on a nice day. You can find updates
about sound baths on his Facebook page or Instagram @
Brian-David.
• Alpha, Theta, and Delta wave meditations are like sound
baths in that they both offer sound at frequencies meant
to deeply relax the mind and body. You can find many
versions of these meditations on Spotify or YouTube and
are usually best taken with high quality headphones in
order to receive the full therapeutic benefit of the binaural
beats. These meditations either layer calming music with
therapeutic tones or have little to no fluctuation as drones.
• Drones share important similarities to brainwave
meditations because they convey specific frequencies to
our brains for entrainment, and we can access them via
the internet from any one of our various devices right
at home. Drones, however, get right to the point and
deliver only specific frequencies. There are no melodies
or harmonies here, just chill, bass tones you can feel in
your bones.
These methods of sound therapy offer ways to relax the
mind even when that seems impossible among the sea of
to-do lists and clutter. Simply sitting with certain sounds can
help recalibrate the nervous system, our sense of identity,
and our perception of the world. Layers of continuous
behaviors and thoughts can fall away, allowing the true self
to fully emerge, in this moment, now.
Siouxland Magazine | Balance /49
Emily Larson, Licensed Massage Therapist, Private Yoga
Instructor, Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology & Human
Performance, Co-Teacher of Anatomy for massage
therapy students at the Bio Chi Institute, mother to Noah.
Crystal singing bowls send soundwaves through the
friction created between bowl and mallet.
Photo Credit (left page) Zach-Pickens.
Photo Credit (right page) Emily Larson.