Exploring the healing power of sound in a noisy world

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On a September evening, yoga mats share space with clothing and jewellery displays at Amala Earth’s store in Delhi. The conscious lifestyle marketplace hosts various events at its Vasant Vihar flagship, and the day’s fixture is a yin and sound bath session.

Yoga and wellness expert Riya Vyas takes a dozen or so participants through a 2-hour session, with a plethora of bronze and crystal bowls which, when played, seem to send sonic waves vibrating throughout the body. I feel heightened by the sound, as if my nerves and muscles are being hauled out of my skin. Surely how Doctor Strange must feel in the astral plane.

According to Vyas, the experience differs from one to another. Participants at the session exemplify her observation—one speaks of feeling relaxed, another says they felt entranced, and a third participant mentions how the sound evoked memories of their mother. Pankhuri Dhanjal, assistant marketing manager, Amala Earth, notes that sound bath sessions have received a positive response from visitors and are becoming a regular feature at the store.

Sound has come to occupy the crux of numerous emerging trends and initiatives that seek to offer solutions for well-being and mindful lifestyles. It is both antithetical yet apt in our world of endless sonic overstimulation. The silence of nature, and its sounds—birds chirping, wind and rain—fade into the background, as the racket of modern living amplifies.