Sound Baths: Do Claims of Relaxation and Healing Ring True?

Many people enjoy the relaxation of a traditional bath, but a newer wellness trend called sound baths has gained popularity.

In sound baths, participants pay to lie on yoga mats, hang in cocoons, or float on inflatable loungers while practitioners ring chimes and bang gongs for relaxation.

Online interest in these experiences has risen exponentially in the last decade, with some offered outdoors in locations like Sydney Harbour.

High-end wellness clubs now feature surround-sound chambers with subwoofers.

Marketing for these classes claims the sounds “soothe and calm your nervous system” and “penetrate every cell in your body,” with specific frequencies purported to promote healing.

Singing bowls are claimed to produce “cosmic sound” that improves chronic symptoms like pain, fatigue, anxiety, or emotional overwhelm.

“There’s a rich field of music psychology that’s all about the impacts of different types of sounds on human psychology and human physiology,” says Dr Vince Polito, a senior lecturer at Macquarie University.

Polito says it is plausible that sound baths can affect mood.

A 2016 study found that participants in a meditation session with Tibetan singing bowls reported less tension, anger, and fatigue, though it was an observational study without a control group. Another randomized controlled trial in breast cancer patients linked Tibetan sound meditation to improved cognitive function and mental health.

Mindfulness meditation has been linked to improvements in anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Dr Sandra Garrido, a senior research fellow at the University of Sydney, says the effects of sound or music on wellbeing largely relate to how we perceive and interpret sounds, not specific types or frequencies.

“Like anything in the wellness space, its benefits can definitely be talked up,” she says.

Research suggests breathing can synchronize without conscious effort to beats we hear, a phenomenon known as rhythmic entrainment, and music can induce emotions such as happiness, sadness, and fear.

Garrido notes that slower, calmer music is often preferred for relaxation. “A lot of meditation-type music focuses on long tones and not too much in the way of melody or rhythmic patterns,” she says, citing Tibetan singing bowls.

“It’s not so much the music itself in this process as … focusing your attention on one thing, and trying to quiet the mind,” she adds.

“Any kind of music that you are focusing on can be a meditative experience.”

Garrido says people often “want something that has this mystical connotation to it.” Of sound baths, she says: “It can be helpful as part of a general wellbeing practice, but it’s not this miracle cure.”

“There are long histories of using music and sound in therapeutic ways,” says Dr Amanda Krause, a senior lecturer at James Cook University and president of the Australian Music and Psychology Society.

Both listening to and producing music have been linked to more than 500 benefits, including promoting social, cognitive, physical, and emotional wellbeing.

This research forms the basis of music therapy, used to improve psychological and physical health.

“Music therapists are registered in their profession [in Australia],” Krause says, adding that they work in schools and hospitals. There is no equivalent regulatory body for sound bath practitioners.

“So often, most of the music listening that we’re doing is accompanying something else,” Krause says, such as exercising or commuting.

Focused music listening is linked to wellbeing benefits. “People can really use that music listening to amplify emotional responses, and often it might be quite a journey,” she says.

“It might not just be a very happy, positive listening experience, but we can see a catharsis through an emotional journey from the listening.”

Garrido says communal music listening in a sound bath can be a “helpful, healthy thing.”

“Historically, throughout most of human history … music has been about social connection,” Garrido says. “It’s only in the last 100 years or so that we’ve had the capacity to go home and listen to music on our own in an isolating kind of way.”

“I’ve been to them myself,” Garrido says of sound baths. “I enjoy them, they can be relaxing, it’s a nice experience – but I wouldn’t pay too much money for it.”

Donna Lu is an assistant editor covering climate, environment, and science at Guardian Australia.

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