Effects of Singing Bowl Sound Meditation on Mood, Tension, and Well-being

University of California San Diego Study

To assess impacts on participants' levels of physical pain, patients were asked to describe their pain before and just after sound therapy. Twenty-nine participants reported experiencing physical pain pre-meditation. If experiencing pain, they were asked to rate their pain on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 representing "very slight discomfort" and 5 representing "extremely painful") then describe the pain and location on the body. Participants aged 40 to 59 years registered the most significant pain relief, with a reduction (or elimination) of physical pain post-meditation, with a baseline mean pain rating of 2.00 and a post-treatment mean pain rating of 0.79.

Music as Medicine

American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology

Literature and research survey for psychology professionals discussing results from JAMA Pediatrics, Trends in Cognitive Science, Progress in Palliative Care, NeuroRehabilitation, and other peer-reviewed medical journals.

A study at Beth Israel Medical Center of 272 premature babies whose heart rates relaxed in response to various musical stimuli.

A University of Alberta study of 42 children who reported “significantly less pain” during IV insertion in the presence of relaxing music.

A Laurier University study of Parkinson’s patients who showed “less rigidity, better walking speed with bigger steps, and reduced tremors” after being exposed to low-frequency 30Hz vibrations for one minute.

Wave Demonstration of Water in a Singing Bowl

MIT Math Department

The Department of Mathematics at MIT rendered singing bowl waves visible by filling them with water and then modeled the water’s behavior using techniques from fluid dynamics. What they discovered is that singing bowls have acoustic properties not unlike a wine glass, but with extremely low vibration frequency (meaning, shorter-amplitude waves that can pass through, and thus interact with, solid bodies more easily). 

Their detection of Faraday waves at the bowl’s rim (or water’s surface) suggested analogies with quantum processes. Put simply, in trying to analyze “what forces sound out of a bowl and how can we do math on it?” they graphically depicted and hydrodynamically modeled a geyser-like eruption of sonic energy. They were able to make droplets “walk along the surface” of a singing bowl and described the behaviors in terms most closely associated with the mysteries of dark matter/energy.

Additional links

2013 interview with Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, formerly medical director of Weill Cornell Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine, discussing sound therapy as part of an oncology treatment plan.

Mapping of harmonic octaves onto psychological “expressive values” to isolate specific emotional effects of different musical and therapeutic sound patterns. — University of Bologna

Explores the role of nitric oxide in the mechanics of stress-related emotions both at the hormonal and neurotransmitter levels and specifically as “signaling molecules” responsive to music and sound therapy and which lead to physiologically testable relaxation. — Neuroscience Research Institute, State University of New York at Old Westbury

Twenty autism sufferers receiving10-20-minute vibroacoustic treatments over 5 weeks showed “reduced self-injurious, stereotypic, and aggressive destructive behaviors” — Centre for Rehabilitation Research, Sweden

 Clinical study of 19 female fibromyalgia patients posits improved regulation of neural rhythms from low-frequency sound stimulation, with “self-reports of improvement in pain, mood, insomnia, and activities of daily living” — University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier University