The Healing Power of Sound Baths

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Rooted Wellbeing is a monthly series exploring everyday wellbeing practices for healing and growth in simple, inclusive and accessible ways to support ourselves through the challenges of estrangement. Offering gentle invitations to pause, reconnect and grow small roots of steadiness and care.

I’m Jules, an Integrative Counsellor, Somatic Therapist in Training and Wellbeing Facilitator. Through this series, I share practices that have supported me and the communities I work with, including my own lived experience of estrangement. My hope is that each piece offers something you might want to gently lean into a reminder that support can come in quiet, unexpected ways.

When Everything Feels Loud (or Very Quiet)

Estrangement can shape our inner world in ways that can be hard to describe, sometimes it feels loud with thoughts circling, emotions rising, a kind of internal noise that doesn’t quite settle. At other times it can feel very quiet, a flatness, a sense of disconnection, like everything has gone a bit distant and there is this humming sound of longing and loss in the background.

Sound baths have been something I’ve been exploring as part of my healing in my own estrangement journey, especially when the world feels too loud, in moments when words feel like too much, when talking doesn’t quite reach the place that needs support. Sound baths have felt like this big hug, embraced in sound and allowing my whole-body soul and mind to be held. 

Image credit: Shutterstock

What Is a Sound Bath 

Despite the name, there’s no actual water involved, but it can feel like you’re bathing in sound. A sound bath is usually a space where you’re invited to lie down or sit comfortably and listen to sounds, often things like singing bowls, gongs, chimes, or soft instruments and the idea isn’t to do anything. Which as someone who finds it hard at times to stop and stay with stillness can feel so challenging just to lay there and receive.

When Rest Feels Hard

One thing I often hear from clients and experience myself, is that rest doesn’t always feel restful. If your system is used to being alert, slowing down can actually feel uncomfortable. Sound baths can offer something different, not forcing stillness, but creating a kind of container where rest may gently emerge.

My first Experience

The first time I went to a sound bath, I noticed that familiar sense of bracing in the body, everyone else seemed to melt gracefully into stillness while I was lying there very aware of my body. My thoughts racing, aware of the people around me, whether I was breathing too loudly, all the little hypervigilant check-ins that can happen when the nervous system has learned to stay alert. But slowly, something began to shift, not because I forced it to, not because I suddenly became peaceful and zen within five minutes, but there was something about the steady sounds, repetitive, predictable.

I slowly noticed myself exhaling more deeply, my shoulders softening a little, the bracing in my body eased just enough for me to realise how much tension I’d been carrying without noticing. It felt less like “switching off” and more like my nervous system slowly realising it didn’t have to hold everything quite so tightly for a while.

After the sound bath I noticed a sense of spaciousness, my thoughts felt quieter, my body felt heavier in a grounding way rather than an exhausted one, I slept deeply that night, which for me is always a sign that something in my system has softened.

A Somatic Way In

Research suggests sound-based practices may help regulate the nervous system by reducing stress hormones, slowing heart rate and supporting relaxation responses in the body. Certain frequencies and repetitive sounds can also help shift brainwave states linked to rest and restoration. I feel that’s part of why sound baths can feel supportive for people navigating estrangement, grief, stress or emotional overwhelm, not because they “fix” anything, but because they can offer the body an experience of being supported to soften.

Sound can be a very gentle way into being in the body, especially if being in the body feels complicated, disconnected or feels unsafe, instead of focusing inward straight away, which can feel intense, sound gives us something external to connect with first, a vibration, a tone, a rhythm. And sometimes, without trying, we might notice breath shifting slightly, a muscle softening, attention landing somewhere a little steadier, not always, but sometimes.

“The body has its own language — one that doesn’t always need words.”— Peter A. Levine

If You Can’t Get to a Sound Bath

In-person sound baths can be lovely, but they’re not always accessible, cost, location, energy levels, or just not wanting to lie in a room with strangers can all be barriers.

There are also many fantastic free Sound Baths on You Tube, Spotify and Insight Timer Creating a Sound Bath in your own space, at your own pace, with full control over when you start and stop.

You may want to try:

• 5–10 minutes to begin with 

• Lying down, sitting, or even just listening while doing something else 

• Stopping before it feels like too much 

• Getting comfortable, lying down, sitting, or wrapping yourself in a cosy blanket 

• Letting the sound be in the background 

A Note for Neurodivergent Nervous Systems

If you’re neurodivergent, sound can be supportive and sometimes it can be too much, some frequencies might feel soothing others might feel overwhelming or unpredictable.

You may want to explore:

• Keep the volume low if you are listening to a recording

• Choose shorter sessions 

• Pause when you need to 

• Try familiar or consistent sounds first 

• If you are attending a live event, check in with the facilitator on what they offer, that you may need time out or to leave if the sound doesn’t resonate for you

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Sound and the Parts of Us

One thing I’ve noticed is that sound can reach different parts of us in different ways. There might be a part that relaxes, a part that stays watchful, a part that feels unsure. Sometimes, just having something external like sound can mean those parts don’t have to do quite so much.

“When we approach our inner world with curiosity instead of judgement, everything begins to change.”— Richard C. Schwartz

A Gentle Journal Reflection

If you’d like to reflect afterwards:

• What did I notice in my body while listening? 

• What felt supportive, and what didn’t? 

• What would I adjust next time to feel more comfortable? 

Sometimes support doesn’t come through words. Sometimes it arrives as sound, vibration, and a moment of pause.