Yours Faithfully: Lower your stress and anxiety levels with sound meditation

Almost everyone is affected by stress – either at home or at school or at work. In 2016, a WHO study on stress in the corporate world found out that about 46 per cent of the workforce in India suffers from some form of stress. This is not surprising considering that suicide rates in India are one of the highest in the world, also according to WHO. Exams bring added stress to parents and children alike. Stress during exams is so rampant that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed this during his ‘Pariksha Par Charcha’ on February 16.
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So how to tackle stress?

The solution is very simple, doable and ‘cool’ – sound wave meditation.
Albert Einstein had once said, “Everything in life is vibration.” You may not have heard about sound-waves meditation before, but it’s all around you and waiting to be discovered. The basis of sound-waves meditation is audio frequencies. The use of sound waves for meditation is nothing new. In fact, chanting of ‘aum’ is one of the oldest forms of sound-wave meditation. Similarly, the prayer bowls or gongs, which Buddhist monks use for chanting and meditating, create sound waves that have a certain impact on the brain.
The concept is simple. Human mind communicates using brainwaves. These brainwaves are produced by synchronised electrical pulses from huge masses of neurons communicating with each other. There are five main types of brainwaves that the human mind can produce (as per current scientific understanding) – Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma.
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So, how does one control these brainwaves to meditate and tackle stress?

One way is with sound-wave meditation, which effectively controls the brain. However, let us understand the why, before the how.
Sound waves affect a change of frequencies in certain parts of the brain, thereby affecting the behaviour of the person due to the different manner in which the neurons in the brain ‘fire up’. Sound and communication expert Julian Treasure explains how sound affects people through