Klaudia Mitura: Hello, happiness seekers. Welcome to the third and final part of this month's Happiness Challenge of relaxing and unwinding with sound healing. This month's Happiness Challenge has been inspired by singer, composer, and musician, Supriya Nagarajan. If you would like to learn more about Supriya's experience and story when it comes to sound healing, listen to episode 73.
If you would like to dive deeper into understanding how sound healing can help you to relax and its impact on your nervous system, listen to episode 74. But for last three weeks, I have been carrying with me my pulse oximeter everywhere to measure my heart rate before and after listening to some healing sounds.
Do I feel happier as a result of sound healing? Listen to find out more.
I must say that sound healing is going to become my new favorite hack to help me to feel definitely calmer. Not only that, my hypothesis of sounds activating the rest and digest branch of the parasympathetic nervous system and slowing down my heart rate, supporting relaxation in my body was confirmed.
So, the heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute, and normal resting heart rate should be between 60 to hundred beats per minute. If your heart rate is over hundred beats per minute, when you are at rest, it is considered fast. A heart rate below 60 when you're at rest , is considered slow.
And it's normal for your heart rate to increase to 115, to 150 beats per minute or more when you exercise or when you are stressed. Slower heart rates around 60 happen when you are resting and are relaxed, and when we asleep, the heart rate can drop below 60. As I already mentioned, I've been carrying with me the pulse oximeter, and I have taken measurements of my heart rate before and after listening to the healing soundtrack for three to five minutes, and I used the tracks composed by Molecular Vibrations, and I must say it was an amazing test.
I really enjoyed playing a scientist. Because the sound healing clearly slowed down my heart rate on all occasions. So my heart rate was 85 to 88 beats per minute, and that was me at work, chatting, engaging, being mentally active. Sometimes my heart rate would jump to 105 or 110 if I would get stressed.
And the other day I also had a nightmare. I woke up in the middle of the night and then started getting anxious. I Started to get anxious about some projects at work and my heart rate jumped to a hundred and five. However, what was most fascinating was that after listening to the Healing soundtrack for three to five minutes, so not very long, my heart rate would fall to 65 or 68 beats per minute. And on that specific occasion, in the middle of the night, it actually helped me to go back to step, and this happened consistently, which was just amazing. So really the bottom line of this challenge is that sound can help us to relax and unwind.
So how can you use sound healing every day? My favorite ways to incorporate it were quite simple. First of all, breaks at work in between meetings, simply taking a pause and listening to the healing sounds. Secondly, on my commute back from work, it was quite nice to have it in the background and keep it calm in the very crowded, very stressful, very intensive London Underground environment, and finally enjoying a hot drink mindfully when listening to some healing vibrations.
And I'm definitely going to explore more extensive periods of sound healing like during meditation or yoga practice, there are also sound bath that you can attend. In the meantime, my advice is that in situations when you want to diffuse a stressful moment, unwind from a challenging day, or have a recovery break, listen to your favorite healing sounds to engage that rest and digest branch of the parasympathetic nervous system to encourage slower heart rate, slower blood circulation, and therefore relaxation in the body.
It's so interesting to point out that even though some therapy originates from Tibetan and Himalayan cultures where monks would conduct spiritual and healing ceremonies today, sound is used in various medical procedures, including breaking up kidney stones and detecting cancer cells, and the most importantly sound can help us to relax, unwind and improve our general wellbeing. So I hope you'll implement it and use it every day to feel happier and definitely calmer.
Thank you so much for listening. Have you been joining in with this month's Happiness Challenge?
Let me know how you feel on LinkedIn. You can find me by searching my name. I see you at the next episode, and I dare you to be happy. Bye.
