Sound Healing: Restorative or ringing alarm bells?

To kick Season 4 of Healthy or Hoax off with a bang - or a gong - Stacey Morrison heads off for some sound healing. Can sound really fix what ails you? Let's find out.The idea of using sound for healing seems to have been around for a very long time. But what does it all mean and what does it do?Stacey Morrison, host of RNZ's Healthy or Hoax podcast, started by joining sound healing teacher and practitioner Kata Mikecz to have her first sound therapy session.What happens in a sound therapy session?Mikecz says she usually assesses a client's body with her instruments before deciding which to use."I usually use them intuitively, so there's no set like script," Mikecz says."I do whatever I feel drawn to."She warns that the sounds can sometimes be painful and encourages Stacey to speak up if she's uncomfortable."For some people they experience like, you know, a tension in the shoulder or in the muscles. Usually, I recommend to people to stay with the sound, even if it's uncomfortable and feelings coming up, because it means that it started to shift something in your mind or body. So, it's great to stay with the sound, but you don't need to just bear it," Mikecz says.Before beginning, Mikecz asks Stacey to set an intention or a positive outcome to focus on during the session. Breathing and visualisation exercises come next.The session lasts 40 minutes and involves Mikecz moving around Stacey with a variety of instruments. These include tuning forks (which have set frequencies), to Himalayan bowls and gongs (which have no precise frequencies or tones), then on to drums and Tingsha cymbals for grounding and dispersing energy.People can often experience some kind of release, such as crying or having different feelings, during a session. Mikecz says people usually feel relaxed and at ease afterwards.How much does it cost?A sound healing session is roughly the same price as a massage.How does sound therapy work?Mikecz says sound healing works through sympathetic resonance; everything has a vibration, but sometimes external influences can upset that vibration or frequency. Sound healing helps bring everything back into balance, she says, and sympathetic resonance can also retrain the frequency of brain activity. …Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details