How can sound improve your mental and physical wellbeing?

• Singing bowls create unique tones
• Acoustic vibrations can target specific body parts

One Kelowna hypnotherapist has a set of bowls that he promises will help ease your mind.

Since 2011, Michael Van Soest, with Conscious Harmonics, has worked as a conscious sound healer. He uses vibrations from crystal singing bowls to bring people into the present and find deep relaxation.

This is something, he said, that can help with both mental and physical health.

“When you’re thinking of a stressful thought, your body will respond and tense up. Over many years of conditioning, thinking stressful thoughts or being in a job that’s really stressful, these muscles can densify quite a lot,” he told Kelowna10.

“When we add vibrations … it will actually, on a very subtle level, help the muscles and the tension to very slowly relax. It’s quite phenomenal what can happen.”

The bowls range in size and when tapped or rubbed around the rim with a wooden mallet, produce different vibrations. Much like a drum set, they are laid out in front of the practitioner in a semi-circle.

Van Soest suggests the practice originated in Tibet thousands of years ago to help monks meditate. Their instruments were made from various metals like gold, copper, silver, or common ores.

The ones Van Soest uses are made from silica sand and quartz crystals formed together in a kiln. This material has only been used this way for about one hundred years.

Because our bodies are mostly comprised of water, he said vibrations go right through us. The unique frequencies and pitches from the various bowls resonate on different body parts.

Deeper tones are felt in lower parts of the body like the legs, whereas higher pitches are felt in places like the head and neck. He said he can even target areas as specific as the adrenal glands with certain frequencies.

He said both sound bathing and hypnotherapy helped him in his own struggles with depression and anxiety. He said it also helped him quit turning to vices like alcohol and tobacco, which he said took him down a dark spiral.

Many first-time sound bathers, he said, report improved sleep and relief from everyday stress.

“Not only that, they feel more refreshed. It’s like they hit a reset button,” Van Soest said.

This Saturday there is an opportunity to put sound therapy to the test. Teaming up with Buddha Beats Yoga, Van Soest will supply the acoustics for a yoga practice at The View Winery and Wards Cider.

The pair promise relaxation unlike anything experienced before.