Listen to this articleNowadays, science and thorough research have proven the many benefits of meditation. The more you meditate, the more you support your mental health and overall well-being. Not only does meditation help us relax, but also increases our focus, promotes quality sleep, boosts our motivation, and many other transformative perks. Of course, meditation can be though, especially for beginners. Is there a shortcut? You’d be surprised! Discover the positive benefits of enhanced sound meditation.
Buddhist monks and meditators have been studied extensively over the last two decades. Yet, we are still concluding new astounding things from the evidence of their mental and physical characteristics. But if your inability to achieve this state naturally and through months of practice frustrates you, is all that effort worth it? Well, yes. Especially if you can use the available tools to achieve a serene mindset!
What science says
Music therapy has certain effects on neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the mechanisms of action underlying music therapy remain pretty much unknown. While research has mostly rejected the “Mozart effect”, music’s effects on our bodies are still valid. In fact, recent music studies in the field of neuroscience had looked at the many benefits of sound. Here are some of them:
Less stress and anxiety
Why is it that listening to your favorite song or instrumental melodies makes you feel immediately better? So much that neuroscientists from Mindlab International have identified the most relaxing songs on earth. Indeed! The top songs include Weightless by Marconi Union, Someone Like You by Adele, and Strawberry Swing by Coldplay among others. All of these songs managed to reduce the listeners’ heart rate, anxiety, and cortisol hormone levels.
And why does this happen? Experts believe that slow and classical music can lower the stress hormone, cortisol. Listening to a relaxing or uplifting song whenever we are stressed can absorb our attention and help us explore our emotional state. That’s why music is an excellent meditation aid. What’s more, music therapy has been used to help people cope during challenging and stressful situations such as chronic illness, childbirth, pre and post-surgery, and more.
Different pain perception
Pain is something very real. In some cases, it might also be subjective. For instance, stressful situations can aggravate your pain perception. That’s why sound and music are able to change your experience of pain. By creating a powerful sound bubble, your focus shifts, and you distance yourself from physical sensations. Yet, scientists also believe that listening to pleasing sounds triggers opioids — the body’s natural pain relievers. As such, beautiful sounds can provide much-needed relief from conditions such as fibromyalgia.
Brain health
Our brains are like our personal computers. They are constantly absorbing, processing, and decoding information, even when we sleep. A significant amount of its power is dedicated to sound processing. Music can “light up” brain areas that aid emotion, memory, and even physical movement. A study by researchers from Helsinki University can help patients recovering from a stroke. According to their findings, verbal memory improved by 60% in the first weeks post-recovery.
More productivity and creativity
While we have to take the “Mozart effect” with a pinch of salt, music can benefit kids and teens in other ways. For instance, playing an instrument engages many parts of the brain at once. Musical training has a positive effect on a child’s focus and learning development. Adults can benefit from enhanced sounds too. Listening to stimulating music help people perform better at “divergent” thinking, which is a key component of creativity. In other words, we are better at transforming information into unexpected forms and finding unexpected combinations.
Synctuition’s audio journeys
Specific sound frequencies and a combination of sounds from nature and electronically produced audio combine to assist your brain on a soundwave and brainwave level, to achieve certain states.
The sound-scape is not natural, as you wouldn’t experience these sounds in their entirety, in nature. You may experience several of these intonations and resonances in isolated ways in the course of a day. Various sources of white and background electronic and ambient noises will create the same sounds, but the Synctuitions and bin-aural programs combine these sounds in unique ways that are designed to promote specific outcomes and responses, based on the way we have come to understand how the brain works.
The sound enhancement happens on two levels:
- Your body has a physical and autonomic response to sound waves and rhythm.
2. The auditory nerves process the stimulus, especially if they occur at certain frequencies, into brainwaves changing and encouraging a state change from alpha and beta to theta and gamma waves.
The desired gamma wave state is something that can take individuals, even disciplined, regularly practicing “learners” months and even years to achieve. Imagine if you could fast-track the achievement of this state through assistance. Apart from encouraging you to meditate, you will feel a change in your mood and mental state within a week.
Related: Healthy Body, Healthy Mind: 6 Ways to Boost Your Well-being
Music and rhythm: the shortcut to balanced mental states
During meditation, many practitioners of the esoteric and religious schools use chanting of specific sounds and syllables at specific frequencies to assist the achievement of specified levels of brainwave states/levels of meditation.
During meditation one is encouraged and at some point required to achieve deeper levels of relaxation and conscious receptivity. Significant research has been done on the “OM” mantra, concluding that resonance plays a causal role in stimulating frequencies within the body and immediate environment to achieve a specific mental (brainwave) state.
The role of sound in achieving different conscious states since our more “primitive” evolutionary stages in the form of shamanic chanting and drumming has almost always been known intuitively. Now the science is there to back it up.
