“I’d like to talk to you about sound healing and why it is one of my favorite supportive tools for nervous system regulation and trauma healing.
In fact, Primal Trust™ came to be through a sound bowl!
Several years ago my friend and mentor, Dorothy Tannahill-Moran, came to see me with a new sound bowl. She explained that the frequencies these bowls emit have very specific effects on the mind, body and soul. When I first heard this bowl’s sound, it rang through my body and nervous system like it was the feeling I had been searching for my whole life.
It happened to be the Schumann Resonance, 7.8Hz, which matches a frequency produced by electromagnetic waves in the Earth’s lower ionosphere. I was literally basking in the healing energy of Mother Earth, an ancient heartbeat our bodies and the bodies of our ancestors have evolved with.
It felt like complete safety to me.
It felt deeply natural, nourishing, primal.
I had to come home to myself.”
If you’ve ever felt instantly calmer after listening to a soft song or the sound of rain, you’ve already experienced a small taste of sound healing. Sound has a way of cutting through the noise in our heads and going straight to the body. It doesn’t push, it doesn’t force, it gently invites the nervous system to settle.
Sound frequency healing works with the idea that certain tones and vibrations can support your body in releasing stress, grounding into the present, and shifting out of survival mode. These aren’t just “nice sounds,” they’re healing sounds designed to regulate breath, slow the heart rate, and bring a sense of calm back to the body.
This isn’t about fixing or forcing anything. It’s about offering your system a sense of safety, rhythm, and resonance through sound.
How Does Sound Affect the Nervous System?
It all starts with your vagus nerve, which plays a major role in how safe or stressed you feel. What’s cool is that this nerve connects directly to your ears, vocal cords, and chest, which means sound has a direct line to your nervous system.
When you listen to calming tones or feel vibrations from music, tuning forks, or even your own voice, you’re essentially giving your body a signal that it’s okay to slow down. It’s like a soft tap on the shoulder saying, “You’re safe now.”
Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes:
- Healing sounds and vibrations help slow the heart rate and deepen the breath, which tells your brain to switch out of fight-or-flight.
- Steady rhythms help quiet racing thoughts and bring you back into the moment.
- Over time, consistent exposure to calming sounds can help rewire your body’s automatic stress responses.
So while it might feel subtle, the effects of sound frequency healing are very real, and for many people, incredibly powerful.
The Types of Sound Healing You Could Try
There are so many ways to explore healing sound frequencies, and none of them require you to be musically gifted. It’s really about what resonates with you…literally.
- Humming, Chanting, and Vocal Toning: Using your voice is one of the easiest ways to activate your vagus nerve. Try humming softly, chanting “Om,” or just letting out a long, low sound like “mmm.” You don’t need to sound good, this is about feeling good.
- Tuning Forks, Crystal Bowls, and Sound Baths: These tools produce specific tones and vibrations believed to support healing and regulation. A sound bath, for example, surrounds you in a wave of calming frequencies that can help melt tension and reset your nervous system.
- Nature Sounds and Music Therapy: If you’ve ever felt soothed by ocean waves, birdsong, or gentle rain, that’s your body responding to healing sound. You can find recordings or apps that use these naturally calming sounds to help with sleep, anxiety, or daily grounding.
Easy Practices to Get Started
You don’t have to attend a sound healing session or invest in expensive equipment to begin. These small, simple healing sounds frequencies practices are a great way to bring healing sounds into your daily life:
- Humming Before Bed or After Stress: A few soft hums before sleep or after a hard day can help shift your body into rest-and-digest mode. It’s surprisingly soothing.
- Play Calming Music During Your Routine: Put on soft instrumental music while cooking, cleaning, or winding down. Think piano, strings, or ambient soundscapes, whatever helps you feel spacious inside.
- Use Guided Sound Meditations or Apps: There are tons of free resources online with sound-based meditations. Try listening with headphones, lying down, and just letting the sound wash over you.
“After this profound experience I started using sound bowls to help tune my body into different healing frequencies. There are so many to work with, ranging from sounds to help the physical body, to the mental and emotional. Frequencies to help with sleep, infections, anxiety, pain…
There can be an array of effects per frequency, so if you have a specific condition in mind that you would like to treat, it can be worthwhile seeking out a qualified sound therapist, such as Dorothy.
A general overview of what happens is the sound bowl creates both a vibration and also generates a frequency, which penetrates your body and brain. Not only is the effect extremely relaxing, but with this your brain starts to create feel-good chemicals such as serotonin and oxytocin, helping you to feel calm and happier.
Hand-hammered singing bowls, such as those Dorothy uses, also produce binaural beats, which you may be familiar with from readily available meditation tracks online.
Essentially, binaural beats are created from two tones that enter the brain at the same time and get converted by the brain into a third tone. The conversion process changes the brainwaves, often going into Alpha or Theta states, which are the most deeply relaxing brainwaves.
If you struggle with meditation but would love to experience the benefits of shutting off your active mind and deeply relaxing your body – sound therapy is the way to go!
I love sound bowls because they dislodge stuck energies and stagnant emotions and start to move them through the body. They can help to move stuck patterns of stress, which ties in beautifully with nervous system regulation tools such as brain retraining, brain attunements and somatic practices.
Vibrational sound healing is a way to help our body feel harmony and coherence, when what is running through our body is disharmony and stress.”
Sound healing isn’t about perfection, it’s about tuning into what feels good, calming, and supportive to your system. Whether it’s a sound bath or just a quiet hum, these moments of sound can offer deep nourishment to a nervous system that’s been on high alert for far too long.
Take My Advice and Try Out Sound Healing For Yourself!
“I recommend experimenting with different forms of sound therapy, whether that’s singing bowls, tuning forks or even just the sound of your own voice creating harmony with humming and singing. All have a beautiful calming and balancing effect on the nervous system.
Dorothy, certified sound healer and Primal Trust™ mentor, during a 1-1 sound healing treatment.
If you want to learn more about the healing power of sound from my own trusted mentor who is a qualified sound therapist, check out Dorothy’s site Aurras, where you can download recordings of her sound healings. She also runs a free 15 minute sound healing online every week.
Visit Aurras Vibrational Sound Therapy Site
And if you’re part of the Primal Trust™ Academy & Community, you will have access to many hours of recorded sound therapy from our video library, which is included in the monthly membership!
To join us and access these resources plus many more for nervous system regulation, you can do so today!
With love,
Dr Cat”
