How sound heals what words cannot

If anxiety is your side pillow, you must have already turned to meditation music or sleep soundscapes to quiet your mind at night. But before we ever had wellness apps, binaural playlists, or sound baths, sound was already doing the work. It has long shaped our cultural and emotional landscape. Without knowing, you’ve probably benefited from sound healing multiple times in your life. For instance, the sound of waves helps me drift off while my soothing playlist enhances my workout session. These are all, albeit rudimentary, forms of sound healing. 

Today, this ancient practice is being ritualised and reimagined across wellness spaces—from hour-long gong immersions to crystal bowls tuned to planetary frequencies. But in a place like India, where the connection between sound and therapy has always existed, it’s less a discovery and more a return. “Sound therapy isn’t new—it’s just being remembered,” says Farzana Ali, London-based sound therapist and 
author of Sound Healing. “Our ancestors understood its potency. Modern wellness is only tapping into what already existed.”

Ali works with ancient Sanskrit belief of Nada Brahma—meaning the world is sound—and it’s this idea 
that shapes her view of healing as something far beyond the physical. “It’s the essence of how I shape my practice. Aum is the sound of the universe. Sound is creation.”

LINK BETWEEN VIBRATION AND BODY

Given that around 60 per cent of our body is composed of water, it’s no surprise that sound—essentially 
vibration—can create movement within us, not just physically in our cells and fluids, but emotionally, in 
ways we often can’t put into words. 

After all, the body remembers, as Bessel van der Kolk’s book, The Body Keeps The Score (2014), argues. “And science now tells us that in order to process big events or traumas we need to feel our way 
through an experience—just talking about it doesn’t help us process it. We need to listen to what our bodies are telling us to truly move through certain events. Sound is a beautiful, gentle, non-verbal way of accessing that space,” says Ali, adding that clients often report feeling moved during sessions. “It’s working on an energetic level, not just a physical one,” she explains.

That emotional movement is something Dr Sagar Mahajan, Wellness Operation Manager at Dharana at 
Shillim, observes regularly. Guests might not walk in looking for catharsis, but it finds them anyway—through tears, long-buried memories, or an inexplicable lightness, he shares. “Sound bypasses the cognitive. The body stores emotion, and frequency gives it a way out.” 

The sessions weave together Himalayan bowls, gongs, and chanting as a way to slip people into theta brainwave states—the range that is associated with deep rest and subconscious processing. Modern neuroscience also backs what ancient cultures intuited: Theta waves (4Hz-8Hz) are linked to creativity and 
trauma release. 

At Ananda in the Himalayas, the philosophy is layered. Sound is not presented as an isolated intervention, but folded gently into a larger meditative framework. “It’s part of a sequence that includes Yoga Nidra, Antar Mouna, and breathwork,” explains Aniket Sarkar, General Manager at the retreat. “Each element supports the others. We’re not trying to fix anyone. We’re trying to create the right conditions for the body and mind to reset.”

Sessions are timed with the body’s natural receptivity—mostly held at dawn or dusk, in acoustically attuned spaces that open into the surrounding forest. “It’s about what the guest doesn’t have to do,” Sarkar says. “When the environment holds you well enough, the healing happens on its own,” he insists.

WHEN EMOTIONS FIND FREQUENCY

While often viewed as spiritual, sound therapy has a tangible physiological basis. “It’s a form of vibrational medicine,” says Dr Sreeragh Haridas, Director of Wellness at Six Senses Fort Barwara. “The body is in constant vibration. Illness, stress, even emotional overwhelm can disrupt that rhythm. Sound helps recalibrate,” he explains.

Whether you’re carrying chronic tension or emotional weight, sound therapy offers more than just deep rest. It has been used to reduce anxiety, regulate breath, improve sleep, and release emotion—often without needing to speak. “It bypasses the thinking mind and works directly with the nervous system,” says Dr Haridas.

Haridas believes the environment is as important as the bowls and gongs. “These sound journeys are hosted in stone rooms that are older than a hundred years where acoustics amplify the resonance of gongs, bowls, and voice work,” he explains.

He adds that certain tones act less like treatment and more like remembrance—reminding the body of its natural rhythm, slowing the heart, softening breath, and creating the conditions where repair becomes possible. Perhaps why its impact is often felt more than understood. “You don’t need to understand the mechanism to feel the effect,” he insists. “It works whether or not you believe in it.”

BEYOND RELAXATION

The experience itself is rarely predictable and the responses vary for all. For some, it’s visceral—a tingling in the spine, a sudden release of emotions, a sensation of weight leaving the body.

For others, it builds slowly over time. “It’s cumulative,” says Dr Haridas. “The nervous system learns how to soften in layers. It’s not always dramatic, but it’s always doing something.”

Aparna Sundar, a Mumbai-based sound practitioner, sees this subtlety as the focal point. “We carry stress in the way we breathe, in the way we hold our shoulders, even in the jaw,” she points out.

She uses a mix of metal bowls, tuning forks, and voice depending on what the body seems to need. “When you introduce sound, you’re giving the body permission to shift.” The body, she notes, holds deeper wisdom than the conscious mind, allowing feelings to surface without verbal processing.

THE QUIET SHIFT

Certain themes come up again and again—grief that lingers, anxiety that resists logic, emotional fatigue that doesn’t go away with rest. And unlike talk therapy, sound doesn’t ask for articulation. “It lets the feeling rise without asking for a name,” says Sarkar. “And sometimes that’s what we need most.”

That release can be followed by what Dr Haridas calls an “energetic hangover”—a temporary rawness or vulnerability. But it eventually passes. “It’s usually a sign that something moved. The body adjusts. Most people leave feeling clearer, lighter.”

And perhaps what makes sound therapy resonate so deeply now—not just in India but across the globe—is that it doesn’t present itself as an escape. It offers a return—not to something outside us, but something we’ve always carried within.

Lead image illustration by: Tanya Chaturvedi

This article first appeared in the August-September 2025 print issue of Harper's Bazaar India

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