Klaudia Mitura: Hello, happiness seekers, welcome. My name is Klaudia and this is The Happiness Challenge. This is part two of how to relax and unwind with sound healing. In the previous episode, we had some fantastic insights about sound healing from a singer, composer, and musician, Supriya Nagarajan and now it's time for me to put her advice into action.
I'm particularly interested in the topic of sound healing because I often struggle to relax and unwind. And the other day I was reading a very interesting piece of research showing that it's easier for us to relax if we understand how our nervous system works and how can we influence it. So let's start this episode with just a little bit of a recap of our human nervous system.
So our human nervous system has two primary modes of operation: the sympathetic nervous system; think about alertness and the parasympathetic nervous system, think about relaxation. The sympathetic nervous system gives us the necessary kick to be alert and often is labelled as fight or flight.
It is a state in the body during which everything speeds up. Our heart rate, breathing, blood circulation. The parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, is split into three branches. We have immobilization when we freeze. We have social engagement when we are chilling with others.
And the final branch is labelled rest and digest, and that is responsible for slowing down our heart rate and encouraging relaxation in the body. And this is the branch that we'll be specifically concentrating on during this month's happiness challenge.
Because in situations where we want to diffuse a stressful moment, unwind from a very challenging day, have a quick recovery break, or simply try to sleep better or fall into sleep quicker. We want to specifically engage that rest and digest branch of the parasympathetic nervous system to encourage that process of slowing down and relaxing in the body.
And one way to do so is to listen to calm, healing sounds. Sound is a wave, and its vibrations are able to hack our brainwaves to trigger many biological responses in the body, including activation of the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for this relaxation and healing. So in this month's Happiness Challenge, I'll be using sound therapy to engage the rest and digest branch of the parasympathetic nervous system to relax and unwind. So what I'm planning to do is the following.
First of all, I'm planning to create sound spaces. So simply put, I will be listening to tracks and sounds that are labelled as sound healing. I specifically selected an album that you can find on Spotify called Molecular Vibrations, and I'll be listening to those specific tracks when taking five-minute breaks between my meetings at work. So trying to just unwind for five minutes and also be trying to use sound healing to unwind after work, which sometimes will mean listening to those during my commute back home. Or sometimes it might be taking a break when switching between work and personal life when I work from home. So taking that extra break to unwind and listen to the molecular vibrations tracks. And during those quick breaks, I'm going to measure my heart rate to see if those sounds actually engage my digest branch of the parasympathetic nervous system, and actually, help me to relax and unwind. I must say I have never dove deeper into sound therapy, so this is a completely new adventure for me. I hope you'll join me. Remember to keep in touch with me and join my newsletter on LinkedIn. I see you at the end of the month so you can hear what I have learned.
But in the meantime, as always, I dare to be happy. Bye.
