#16 Sounds good to me
Our senses can play a very positive influential role when it comes to our well-being. We should pause more to pay attention to our senses and discover new smells, tastes, sounds, colours and feelings. I have explored touch (magic of massage) and smell (essential happy smells) in previous blogs – this one is about sounds which for me can be like medicine.
Sounds can trigger memories, evoke emotions and cue other physiological reactions that affect us mentally. I have been thinking about the ways that sounds affect the way I feel so thought I would share:
Sounds from Mother Nature
Nature does feature a lot in advice about well-being, and for good reason. The myriad of sounds in nature can evoke many positive emotions.
Joy from hearing birds tweeting
Calmness of a babbling brook or gentle breeze
Exhilaration of a thunder storm
It’s no coincidence that sounds from nature are used during therapies such as massage. So when I am out on my daily walk - I try to pay more attention to what I can hear and how it makes me feel.
Music
I love the fact that music tastes are so personal as they are built up as the soundtrack of our lives. Music is an important mood barometer for me - I choose different music to listen to depending on whether I need to calm down, get motivated, escape stress. There are different playlists or go to tunes for every occasion:
Dancing round the kitchen like nobody is watching - which I tend to do a lot (usually dance or house music or Ibiza radio),
Cleaning the house (something loud like ACDC or Rolling Stones)
Concentrating on writing a proposal (background music that won’t distract me too much – maybe soul or R&B)
Exercising (anything fast with a good beat)
Relaxing (Tibetan hand pipes or hand pan tunes)
I have found that I have enjoying my music even more since I got my beloved pink headphones as it means I can retreat to my own bubble and listen to whatever I want.
Live gigs
Gigs and music festivals are like a group meditation for me, I typically go to several each year (until this year where cancellations are the norm). I have been lucky enough to go to Glastonbury Festival 7 times and have been to see some of the greats (IMHO) including Prince, Chaka Khan, Michael Jackson, Rolling Stones, Take That, Faithless, Jay-Z, Destiny’s Child, Justin Timberlake, Lionel Richie (about 8 times!) – the list goes on. It’s one of my favourite ways to feel good – losing yourself and looking around seeing such shared happiness.
Music plays such a huge role in celebrations, family and community gatherings because it helps to unit us as humans. Here is a great quote from Dalai Lama on music:
“Among the many forms in which human spirit has tried to express its innermost yearnings and perceptions, music is perhaps the most universal. It symbolizes the yearning for harmony, with oneself and others, with nature and the spiritual and the sacred within us and around us. There is something in music that transcends and unites. This is evident in the sacred music of every community—music that expresses the universal yearning that is shared by people all over the globe.”
Sound therapy
I am a big fan of sound therapy and have attended several gong baths. If you haven’t experienced this, it is a form of sound healing meditation where you are immersed in the vibrations of a variety of gongs representing the planets.
Sound therapists use relaxing or stimulating sounds to try to rebalance the body - gongs, drums, bells, bowls, tuning forks to rebalance our energy frequencies. One of my most exhilarating experiences was at a sound bath when a didgeridoo was played directly behind me (and no that is not a euphemism!). I have witnessed people leaving these sessions in tears and make life-changing decisions following extreme emotional reactions. There is some more information here https://www.healthline.com/health/sound-healing#how-it-works.
