THE BODY IS LISTENING

Sound, vibration + why they are part of THE RESET

Before we understood sound, we experienced it.

Before language. Before memory. Before playlists, AirPods, concerts or arguing over who gets control of Spotify, we were developing inside a world of rhythm, movement and vibration.

The womb is not silent.

Sound reaches a developing fetus through the mother's body — through tissue and fluid, including amniotic fluid. Lower frequencies transmit particularly well, and as the auditory system develops, the fetus becomes increasingly responsive to sound.

Even more fascinating to me: in this fluid environment, sound can reach the developing inner ear through pathways that include bone conduction.

Before we ever stood in front of a speaker and felt bass move through our chest, our developing bodies were already experiencing sound in a profoundly physical way.

To be clear, sound isn't responsible for forming our brain, vagus nerve or organs. Those systems develop through their own extraordinarily complex biological processes.

But our auditory system, brain, nervous system and body develop alongside one another.

Our relationship with sound starts early.

And it has never been limited to our ears.

SOUND IS PHYSICAL

Strip away everything we've attached to music culturally and sound is something surprisingly simple:

Mechanical energy travelling through a medium.

Air carries it.

Water carries it.

Tissue carries it.

Bone carries it.

And sometimes your entire rib cage carries it.

Anyone who has stood near a serious sound system when the bass drops understands this without needing to read a scientific paper.

You hear it.

But you also feel it.

Your body knows.

That distinction — between hearing sound and physically experiencing it — has fascinated me for years.

And oddly enough, one of my favourite illustrations comes from a ridiculous movie about a deaf Ibiza DJ.

IT'S ALL GONE PETE TONG

If you haven't seen It's All Gone Pete Tong, Frankie Wilde is a fictional superstar DJ who loses his hearing.

His career collapses.

Eventually, he discovers another way back into music.

He learns to mix using visual information and by physically feeling the beat through speakers.

Obviously, Frankie Wilde is not a clinical trial.

But the idea at the centre of the film is real and compelling:

Hearing sound and experiencing sound aren't necessarily the same thing.

Sound can become vibration.

Vibration can become sensation.

Rhythm can become movement.

Music can become memory, anticipation, emotion and connection.

And that takes me to Joni Mitchell.

JONI

In 2015, Joni Mitchell suffered a brain aneurysm.

Her recovery was enormous. She had to relearn fundamental physical skills and eventually had to figure out how to play guitar again, working out new ways to play when her hands no longer remembered what they once knew automatically.

Over time, musicians began gathering at her home.

They played.

She listened.

Eventually she began singing.

Then playing.

Those gatherings became the now-famous Joni Jams.

She returned to the stage at Newport Folk Festival in 2022.

And in 2024, at 80 years old, Joni Mitchell performed two sold-out Joni Jam concerts at the Hollywood Bowl.

I want to be careful here.

Music didn't cure Joni Mitchell.

Medicine, rehabilitation, neuroplasticity, time, work, relationships, determination and probably factors we'll never completely understand are all part of her recovery.

But music was part of her return.

And I find that incredibly moving.

Because music isn't simply information entering our ears.

It engages memory, emotion, movement, attention, reward and learning.

Sometimes it also feels like something science is less equipped to quantify:

A way back to ourselves.

SCIENCE IS STARTING TO MEASURE SOME OF THIS

Humans have used drums, chanting, singing, rhythm and acoustic instruments together for thousands of years.

Now we're getting better at measuring what happens when we do.

Research across more than 100 randomized controlled trials has found that music interventions can have beneficial effects on psychological and physiological measures associated with stress.

Research specifically involving singing bowls is younger, but increasingly interesting.

Recent systematic reviews have found promising evidence involving anxiety, mood, sleep, well-being and some physiological measures, while also making something very clear:

We need more high-quality research.

I like that answer.

Promising. Interesting. Worth investigating. Not magic.

One study followed 62 adults through a sound meditation using Tibetan singing bowls, crystal bowls, gongs, bells and other instruments. Following a single session, participants reported significantly less tension, anger, fatigue and depressed mood.

One session.

Does that mean a crystal bowl cures anxiety?

No.

Does a gong reorganize your life?

Also no.

Although occasionally lying under one makes it feel entirely possible.

What it tells us is that experiences involving sound can produce measurable changes in how people feel — sometimes within a relatively short period of time.

And that is worth paying attention to.

THEN WE ADD VIBRATION

This is where my work becomes particularly interesting to me.

Vibroacoustic therapy, or VAT, uses low-frequency sound vibration delivered through a physical surface such as a chair, bed or treatment table.

Instead of sound simply surrounding you, vibration is physically transmitted through the surface supporting your body.

You hear it.

And you feel it.

Research into VAT has explored applications including pain, physical tension, relaxation and rehabilitation.

A review of 20 studies involving adults experiencing pain found that many VAT sessions lasted between 20 and 45 minutes. Some involved a single session; others used repeated treatments ranging from multiple times per week to weekly.

Many of the studies reported positive outcomes, but researchers were appropriately cautious.

The protocols varied. The evidence is still developing. And we don't yet know exactly which frequencies, durations or treatment schedules are optimal — or how long particular effects last.

Again, I like that answer.

It doesn't require us to choose between:

“This is nonsense.”

and

“40 Hz will fix your entire life.”

There is a very interesting place in between.

That's where I want to work.

WHY 45 MINUTES?

We are remarkably good at finding ways to spend 45 minutes.

Scrolling.

Email.

Traffic.

Netflix.

Work.

Thinking about work.

Solving other people's problems.

Forty-five minutes disappears constantly.

So I'm interested in a different question:

What happens when you give your body 45 minutes in which absolutely nothing is required of you?

That's the foundation of my Sound + Vibroacoustic RESET.

You lie down.

Low-frequency sound vibration moves through the treatment bed and is physically felt through your body.

I work with crystal and Himalayan singing bowls, gong and other acoustic instruments around you — and, where appropriate, bowls directly on or close to the body, allowing resonance to become a tactile experience as well as an auditory one.

Sound.

Vibration.

Stillness.

Breath.

Sometimes music.

Sometimes almost nothing.

You don't have to meditate.

You don't need to know your chakras.

You don't need to understand Hertz.

You don't even have to be good at relaxing.

In fact, if you're terrible at relaxing, you're probably exactly who I'm talking to.

You just have to lie there.

For 45 minutes, you receive instead of perform.

WHY COME BACK?

This part matters.

A single sound session may change how you feel that day. Research has documented immediate changes following individual sessions.

But I'm equally interested in consistency.

Not because I can promise that three sessions will permanently “reset your nervous system.”

I can't.

And the science can't either.

I'm interested in something simpler and potentially much more useful:

Practising recovery before you're desperate for it.

We understand this everywhere else.

One workout doesn't make us strong.

One nutritious meal doesn't change our health.

One great night's sleep doesn't compensate for six months of exhaustion.

One meditation doesn't create a meditation practice.

Yet somehow we expect rest and recovery to work differently.

We wait until we're depleted.

Then we stop.

Then we feel slightly better.

Then we immediately start running again.

What if intentional recovery became something we practised?

What if rest became part of how we take care of ourselves instead of something we finally allow ourselves when we're exhausted?

And what if your body became familiar with 45 minutes in which it wasn't answering, producing, fixing, scrolling or taking care of somebody else?

That's the reason I believe in consistency.

Not dependency.

Not magic.

Practice.

A regular opportunity to stop.

To experience sound and vibration.

To receive instead of produce.

And to notice what changes.

Come once because you're curious.

Come back because you notice the difference.

AND THEN THERE'S THE DANCE FLOOR

Perhaps none of this should surprise us.

Electronic music is having another enormous cultural moment.

Despite having virtually unlimited entertainment available individually and on demand, millions of humans still really want to gather in rooms, warehouses, clubs, fields and festivals around enormous speakers.

I understand why.

Bass.

Repetition.

Rhythm.

Movement.

Anticipation.

Release.

Connection.

Electronic music makes the physicality of sound almost impossible to ignore.

You don't simply listen to a great set.

You're inside it.

Now, is dancing until 2 a.m. automatically a nervous-system regulation practice?

Let's not get carried away.

Your nervous system may have several notes for you the following morning.

But there's something undeniable about what happens when music, movement and other human beings come together.

We seek it.

We have always sought it.

From drums and communal singing to orchestras, concerts, clubs and festivals, humans keep finding ways to experience sound together.

Maybe some of that is physiological.

Some psychological.

Some social.

Some emotional.

And perhaps some of it is simply good for the soul.

Science does not currently have a particularly good instrument for measuring the soul.

I'm okay with that.

THIS IS WHY I DO WHAT I DO

I've worked with sound for more than a decade.

I've watched people arrive carrying their lives in their bodies.

Shoulders up.

Jaw tight.

Breathing shallow.

Mind going a hundred miles an hour.

And I've watched what can happen when, for a little while, nothing is required from them.

The longer I've done this work, the less interested I have become in separating a person into parts.

Skin over here.

Brain over there.

Nervous system somewhere else.

Sleep in another box.

Stress in another.

Recovery when we can fit it in.

We don't live that way.

Skin isn't separate from sleep.

Sleep isn't separate from stress.

Stress isn't separate from the nervous system.

And the nervous system isn't separate from how we move, breathe, connect, recover and experience the environment around us.

Everything is in conversation.

That understanding became part of the foundation of THE RESET.

It's why I combine skin health and lymphatic work with sound, vibration, touch, light, stillness and nervous system care.

I'm not interested in convincing you that a particular frequency will heal you.

I'm interested in what happens when we intentionally create the conditions for the body to stop doing for a while.

To receive.

To feel.

To listen.

And perhaps to remember something humans have known for a very long time.

Before we understood sound, we experienced it.

Frankie Wilde felt music he could no longer hear.

Joni Mitchell found her way back to music — and eventually back onto one of the world's great stages.

Millions of us continue to gather on dance floors because something happens when the bass drops that can't quite be replicated through a pair of earbuds.

And somewhere between physics, neuroscience, memory, movement, vibration and emotion is a relationship we're still learning to understand.

Sometimes science can measure it.

Sometimes science is still catching up.

And sometimes you simply know how you feel when the music stops.

The body is listening.

EXPERIENCE IT

Sound + Vibroacoustic RESET

45 minutes of live acoustic sound, low-frequency vibroacoustic stimulation and intentional rest.

No experience required.

No performance required.

Nothing to accomplish.

Just 45 minutes to listen, feel and receive.

Come once because you're curious.
Come back because you notice the difference.

SOURCES + FURTHER READING

Fetal hearing + bone conduction
Research examining fetal hearing and the role of bone conduction in the womb.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11605684/

Music + stress
Meta-analysis of 104 randomized controlled trials examining the effects of music interventions on stress-related outcomes.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31167611/

Singing bowls + health
2025 systematic review of clinical research examining singing bowl interventions.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40352083/

Tibetan singing bowls + well-being
2025 systematic review examining psychological and physiological outcomes associated with Tibetan singing bowls.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40868617/

Sound meditation
Research examining mood, tension and well-being following a sound meditation using singing bowls, crystal bowls, gongs and other instruments.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27694559/

Vibroacoustic therapy
Scoping review examining vibroacoustic therapy for adults experiencing pain, including session duration, frequency and outcomes.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8984038/

Joni Mitchell + her recovery
Joni Mitchell's official archive.
https://jonimitchell.com/library/

Joni Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl
Coverage of the 2024 Joni Jam performances.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2024-10-20/joni-mitchell-hollywood-bowl-brandi-carlile-joni-jam-review

Electronic music + its continued growth
International Music Summit Business Report.
https://www.internationalmusicsummit.com/ims-business-report

THE RESET EDITION explores emerging science alongside lived and professional experience. Sound and vibroacoustic practices are complementary wellness modalities and are not substitutes for medical diagnosis, treatment or rehabilitation.