Sound healing is a developing discipline that sound therapists deliver with specialized training. Sound healing entails applying sound frequencies using therapy. This therapy is applied to people’s minds and bodies to enhance their health and feeling of peace.

How is sound used as a therapy for pain?

For cancer patients, chronic pain is a crucial issue that requires effective pain management. Therefore a holistic approach is necessary. For example, some types of chemotherapy trigger side effects like peripheral neuropathy or nerve damage. However, there are limited pharmacological treatment options.

According to research, sound and music help in controlling pain. Recently a review was of 400 published scientific articles was carried out. The objective was to determine whether music could be used as medicine. In light of this, it was concluded that music controls pain. A different systematic review indicated that music interventions mainly reduce pain in people who have cancer.

Music reduces stress, worries, and acts as a distraction. Additionally, it reduces pain and promotes pleasure. Also, apart from these functions, music modulates the release of hormones and neurotransmitters. It includes enhanced serotonin, dopamine, and lowered levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Additionally, brain imaging indicates that music modulates activity in brain structure areas that deal with emotions, for instance, the amygdala.

Vibro-acoustic and sound therapy

Music has various positive impacts, and this has led to a more intensive investigation to find out its effects on pain. For instance, low-frequency sound stimulation or vibro-acoustic therapy is applied. It entails sound or music that is heard and felt. This therapy is utilized to manage pain and is delivered through beds and chairs featuring fixed low-frequency transducers.

According to research, sound therapy reduces pain perception because pain receptors transmit data to the brain through a pathway of interlocked nerves. The nerve penetrates the spinal cord; there is a ‘gateway’ that opens to prompt the opening or closing signal. Sensory stimulation like vibro-acoustic therapy can close this gate. When the brain is healthy, it sustains certain levels of oscillatory activity. Because of this, there is a possibility that this type of brain oscillatory activity disruption is pain-related.

How sound affects the brain

The healthy brainy operation utilizes a musical metaphor that depends on a musical ‘symphony’ consisting of neuronal groups. These groups swing at particular frequencies leading to this theory. The theory indicates that a group may play out of tune by being too slow or fast or too low or high. In that case, the symphony changes to ‘cacophony’ fast.

This idea is fascinating because the music rhythm has the most significant anti-pain impact on the brain when analyzing music’s therapeutic role. For example, between the cortex and thalamus, oscillatory loops present a communication mechanism in the brain. In other words, it is similar to how a major center affects the Internet.

The thalamus and cortex interconnectivity strongly relies on their rhythmic oscillatory function. In this regard, when this connectivity is abnormal, it leads to neuropathic and chronic pain.

Some sound frequencies’ vibratory nature may present a manner of stimulating the brain through vibro-acoustic means. Therefore it leads to the controlling of the brain’s oscillatory activity. Vibro-acoustic therapy was used successfully in a preliminary trial for chronic pain patients.

The authors believed that the decrease in pain post-treatment might be because the therapy rearranged the existing cortical-thalamic dysrhythmia. This is an interesting theory. However, it has not yet been verified in the framework of randomized clinical trials.

Conclusion

Various theories exist about how music and sound help in relieving physical pain. There is no scientific proof of these concepts. However, there is a belief that music or vibrational therapy helps patients suffering due to cancer pain.