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What is singing bowl therapy?
Singing bowls are metal and crystal bowls used to deepen meditation and promote relaxation. They produce sustained sounds and vibrations when hit or circled with a mallet.
Sound therapy and guided meditations often make use of singing bowls. Bowls of varying sizes are placed around the room, around your body, or on your body. You can use them by yourself or with the help of a meditation or healing practitioner.
If you would like to hear the beautiful and relaxing sound of singing bowls, you may want to watch this video of six-time Grammy-nominated singer Jhené Aiko, who has helped bring singing bowls into mainstream music.
In addition to relaxation, people say singing bowl sound therapy can help:
- lessen chronic pain
- improve sleep
- reduce anger
- improve blood pressure
- improve respiratory rate
- reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression
- improve symptoms of some neurological disorders such as fibromyalgia and Parkinson’s disease
What is sound therapy?
Singing bowl therapy falls under the umbrella of sound therapy. Sound therapy incorporates singing, chanting, and instrumental music. It is ancient practice that has become a popular complementary treatment for many physiological and mental health conditions.
UCLA, which offers a music therapy treatment program, cites research showing that sound therapy can help improve both physiological symptoms and mental health.
Research at McGill University has explored the neurochemistry of music. The researchers noted that sound therapy is an ancient art that has migrated in the past several decades into clinical settings. Clinicians use it for
- pain management
- relaxation
- psychotherapy
- personal growth
Where did singing bowls come from?
It is said that Tibet and neighboring areas have used singing bowls for centuries in religious and spiritual ceremonies, as well as meditation. According to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Tibetan singing bowls first appeared around 560–480 BC.
Some historians dispute the link between singing bowls and Tibet and say singing bowl use for healing and relaxation is a modern convention. Others criticize the claim of a connection between singing bowls and Tibet as a form of cultural appropriation.
Singing bowls are made out of metal alloys, often copper and brass, similar to church bells. Some singing bowls are also made out of quartz crystal.
Are there any potential benefits to using singing bowls?
It’s unclear exactly why singing bowls might have positive effects on health and well-being.
Some theories include:
- The sound of the singing bowls may produce binaural beats, encouraging brain waves that help you feel relaxed, such as beta waves or trance-like theta waves. This is called entrainment, or stimulating brain waves through pulsing sound or light.
- The sound waves from the bowl act on the energy field of your body and cause you to relax.
- Singing bowls may work by their vibrations as well as sound.
There’s also some evidence that music therapy more generally can reduce your levels of the stress hormone cortisol. When your levels of cortisol are lowered, you feel more relaxed.
What does the research say?
A 2020 research review of four studies showed that singing bowl therapy resulted in improved mental and emotional health. These improvements echoed the findings of an earlier 2016 observational study. Some of these improvements include:
- anxiety
- depression
- fatigue
- tension
- anger
- confusion
- vigor
The study also reported improvements in physical health, including:
- blood pressure
- heart rate
- respiratory rate
- peripheral capillary oxygen saturation
A 2019 study found that Himalayan singing bowls can help induce a deep state of relaxation in a short period of time, often under 20 minutes. This level of relaxation was greater in both depth and consistency than relaxation from just lying down in silence.
A pilot study in Italy showed that Tibetan singing bowls helped relieve distress and increase a sense of well-being in people with metastatic cancer. They also helped decrease anxiety, involuntary mental activity, and stress. The researchers called for larger studies to confirm results.
A 2022 study in Germany found that singing bowl massage led to a decrease of overall EEG power, or certain brain signals, which might help create a sense of well-being. These researchers also called for larger studies to confirm results.
Are there any potential precautions to using singing bowls?
Makers and practitioners of singing bowls sometimes issue precautions. Some common warnings, like these from Shanti Bowl, include:
- Beginners: Start out with slow 5-minute sessions until you see how the singing bowls affect you.
- Epilepsy: Singing bowls may trigger seizures. People with epilepsy should generally avoid singing bowls.
- Metal implants: Avoid singing bowls if you have metal devices in your body, such as a pacemaker, coronary shunt, artificial heart valves, or metal pins or staples. The vibration of the singing bowl sound could possibly move the metal inside you, causing injury or malfunction of the device.
- Bodily conditions: Avoid placing singing bowls directly on or near tumors, implants, screws, or artificial joints.
- Mental health: Singing bowls often elicit deep memories, emotion, and thoughts. If you are diagnosed with a mental disorder like PTSD, anxiety, or depression, be sure to work with your doctor or therapist to make sure you can manage the thoughts and feelings that might arise.
- Skin conditions: If you have an inflammatory skin condition like psoriasis, eczema, or hives, practitioners recommend not placing bowls on your body since they could aggravate the skin condition.
- Pregnancy: In general, avoid singing bowls during pregnancy. If your doctor approves, you might try short sessions, but make sure the bowls are away from your belly and back.
- Children: Be careful to monitor your child’s use of a singing bowl. Use incorrectly, it can damage hearing.
- Surgery. After surgery, wait to place singing bowls on your body until sutures are removed and your skin is fully healed.
Lack of effective treatment for health problems
If you’re using Tibetan singing bowls as a therapy for physical health problems or mental health issues, it’s important to use them as a complementary therapy and not the only therapy.
It’s not a good idea to delay other treatment or therapy in order to use Tibetan singing bowls as a treatment. If you have a diagnosed condition, be sure to talk with your doctor about any treatment you’d like to try, including singing bowls.
How to use Tibetan singing bowls
During singing bowl therapy, you’ll be lying down on the floor, with the bowls in one of several configurations. They may be placed
- on different points on your body.
- around your body.
- around the room (if there are multiple people in the therapy), with at least one bowl near your head
Either you or a practitioner will tap the bowl with a mallet and then use the mallet to circle the bowl using varying pressure and speed. This will make varying sounds, often prolonged to emit different vibrational frequencies.
Singing bowls may be used with or without guided meditation.
Takeaway
There is a growing body of research that sound therapy using singing bowls can benefit some mental and physical conditions. The most evidence is for relaxation, especially if you use the bowls in guided meditation.
There is little evidence that Tibetan singing bowls are dangerous in any way. For most people, they likely won’t cause any negative effects. There are a number of precautions against using singing bowls in some circumstances, like during pregnancy, if you have epilepsy, or if you have metal devices in your body.
Most studies of health benefits of singing bowls have been conducted in the past decade. Researchers say larger studies are needed to confirm results of reported benefits of singing bowl therapy.
Have you ever wondered how singing bowls work? In this post, we answer that question by discussing the science of singing bowls. Read on to learn how these incredible creations produced their incredible sounds. We also explain how singing bowls can be used with water to change their sounds as well as discuss the physical effects of playing singing bowls.
Introduction
While the enthralling sounds of singing bowls might calm you, they might also spark the question, “how exactly do they work?” Like all musical instruments, Tibetan singing bowls rely on friction and vibration to create the sound we hear. What makes singing bowls so special are the different sounds that can be created by them depending on their qualities and the various circumstances and conditions in which they may be played.
Scientists and musicians alike have recently become interested in the singing bowl and the manner in which it creates sound. The science behind the sounds of singing bowls is quite simple and can best be compared to playing wine glasses filled with water. However, the science behind the healing properties of singing bowls is not quite as familiar or established.
In this article we discuss:
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How do singing bowls work?
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How can singing bowls be used with water?
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What are the physical effects of singing bowls?
How Do Singing Bowls Work?
To play a singing bowl, one must either strike the bowl or rub the rim with a mallet. The action taken with the mallet is the first step in creating sound with a singing bowl. As explained by Science Made Simple UK, the friction created either by rubbing or striking a singing bowl creates vibrations. These vibrations create the sound we hear and can feel when holding the singing bowl. As you continue to rub the rim of the bowl, the friction keeps the sound going. This is called resonance. Resonance is the note we hear even after the player ceases contact between the singing bowl and the mallet.
To make matters a bit more complicated, the note we hear can differ between singing bowls and mallets. Most singing bowls are made from a bronze alloy of either copper, tin, zinc, iron, silver, gold, or nickel. The material with which the singing bowl is made can change the sound, as can the mallet. Crystal bowls will not sound the same as bronze alloy bowls. Wooden mallets and padded mallets will produce different sounds as well. The size, shape and weight of the singing bowl can also affect what tones are produced. Adding water will change the note of the singing bowl as water is more difficult to vibrate than the air inside an empty singing bowl. Cushions, rings, or other accessories also alter the sound of singing bowls, often dampening or softening the sounds. Despite these differences, how singing bowls work can be boiled down to a simple idea: excitation of the rim causes the singing bowl to vibrate, creating a rich tone.
Singing Bowls and Water
Source: BBC
Source: BBC
Many of the studies revealing the inner workings of singing bowls focus on singing bowls filled with water. In particular, there are multiple studies devoted to observing the way water is excited when playing a singing bowl. Two studies, one done by Octávio Inácio et al. called “The Dynamics of Tibetan Singing Bowls,” and another by Denis Terwage and John Bush called “Tibetan Singing Bowls,” have studied just that. These groups observed singing bowls filled with water being played with slow motion video and sound recording. In turn, their studies were summarized in a BBC article by Jason Palmer.
They found that as the singing bowl is played, the rim begins to change shape, switching back and forth between slightly oval shapes. The energy of the bowl transfers to the water. The energy charged water creates waves, which create droplets of water that bounce and skip on the surface. This phenomenon is known as Faraday waves. These studies have much larger implications than just acoustic music or sound meditation and healing–the study of the singing bowl’s Faraday waves can actually be applied to processes such as fuel injection.
A figure from the study, “
A figure from the study, “ The Dynamics of Tibetan Singing Bowls ”, showing the different shapes of singing bowls when being played.
Adding water changes the frequency of the singing bowl. The addition of water often lowers and creates a deeper, longer-lasting resonance. Incorporating water filled singing bowls can create additional tones used for meditation or sound therapy, but it can also be an example of an interesting science experiment. How singing bowls work is based on scientific studies and physics. On the other hand, the effects of singing bowls on our bodies and well-being is on less solid scientific ground but should be discussed nonetheless.
What are the Physical Effects of Singing Bowls?
Researching the scientific physical effects of singing bowls has yielded lots of contradictory evidence. Overall, most publications focus on the beneficial side effects of using a singing bowl in sound therapy rather than scientific proven fact that singing bowls can heal a variety of ailments. In fact, Chris Kyriakakis, a professor of audio signal processing at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering has said that there are no “scientific published peer reviewed papers” that support the claims that sound therapy “unblocks or redirects energy in the body” or that the vibrations produced work in tandem with humans’ own vibrational frequencies.
Despite Professor Kyriakakis’s statements, positive testimonials from other professionals and practitioners is overwhelming. One of the biggest proponents of using singing bowls for healing was Mitchell Gaynor, an oncologist and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. Gaynor, who began working with singing bowls in the 1990s, championed the use of sound healing in addition to conventional treatment and medicine. The reason for this, Gaynor argued, was that sound therapy eased the psychological and physical effects of those with disease. He also argued that sound therapy gave patients “lower stress hormones and stronger immune systems.” The pulsating tones of the singing bowl help practitioners feel good and relax.
Practitioners will also sometimes provide the afflicted with sound therapy as an alternative treatment for problems such as anxiety, chronic pain, sleep disorders, and PTSD. These practitioners maintain that sound therapy places listeners in a meditative state, in turn, allowing them to de-stress, relax, and heal.
There are numerous articles on the internet written by sound healers and those that incorporate singing bowls into their treatment for a variety of illnesses and disorders. Singing bowl vibrations can have various physical, emotional, and spiritual effects on the mind and body. Sound therapy can be a great additional or alternative treatment to a number of physical or mental problems or just added relaxation to meditation or yoga classes.
Source: Awakening Wellness Center
The Bottom Line
We now know that singing bowls sing not because of magic or mystical forces. Singing bowls sing because of physics! Vibrations and resonance are created by striking the bowl with a mallet. In addition, while the scientific evidence is not clear, a wealth of anecdotal evidence indicates that singing bowl tones have positive physical, mental, and emotional effects on those who hear them. Tibetan singing bowls have been used in religious practice for about 2500 years and are now increasingly found in sound therapy practices, meditation, and yoga classes. Singing bowls work like any other instrument but their implications to improve our lives are endless!
We invite you to get your own Tibetan singing bowl or crystal singing bowl today!
Did You Enjoy This Article?
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this article, you might also like the following articles: Singing Bowl Tones and Frequencies: Complete Guide and Crystal Singing Bowls: The Complete Guide
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