Sound healing: can you drum your way to better health? Sing your way to serenity? Tune up your immunity with a tuning fork? Science takes a surprising look at the restorative powers of chant, rhythm and music

Changes in these immunity markers might be attributed to the stress-reducing benefits of self-expression and camaraderie as well as the rhythm of the drumbeat, speculates Bittman. The group began their session by passing hollow, bead-filled "shaker eggs" around a circle, faster and faster until the eggs dropped to the floor. This created a light, playful mood, which was followed by participants playing drums in rhythm with the syllables of their own names. Then the group drummed together in various tempos, and finally spent 30 minutes drumming to guided imagery.

One of the most unique aspects of a drumming circle is the connectedness it creates. "The community aspect is just as important as the drumming" notes Mark Testa, a Boulder, Colo.-based chiropractor who holds drumming circles.

the human instrument

Such results aren't limited to percussion players. Erica Christensen, a former lupus sufferer in Colorado, knows that firsthand. She'd been ill since her teenage years; two years ago, she was so sick that she was dividing her time between a walker and a wheelchair. Then she went to a five-day workshop given by Sandra Ingerman, who teaches Shamanic healing with sound and light, as well as vocal toning, a method that uses the voice to induce healing and relaxation.

"When I got there I was in agonizing pain," says Christensen. Twenty minutes after a group of 50 people toned for her and seven others, she was pain-free. After the workshop was over, she went hiking in the Gila Cliff dwellings at an altitude of 6,000 feet.

Christensen believes her transformation was due to the power of toning. Can that be true? "I don't know the cause of her healing," says nurse-practitioner Rae Pericharos of the University of Colorado Medical Center, who has overseen Christensen's treatment since 1997. "But I do know that the experience [coincided with] her severe symptoms going into remission. Before, she constantly needed anti-inflammatory drugs and occasionally narcotic pain medication. Since the toning session she's been stable, with occasional, very mild episodes that usually respond to a single dose of ibuprofen."

It's been 30,000 years since primitive man first picked up a bone and carved a flute. It's now possible to map music's traces in the brain, study its impact on the immune system, and listen to the songs of black holes and living cells. Perhaps Jim Gimzewski is right, and sonocytology will allow specialists to someday diagnose disease merely by listening. Until then, turn up the volume, sing in the shower, tap out a rhythm by yourself or with others, hum it or drum it--it will all feel good.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group