Himalayan sound healing

What is Himalayan sound healing?

Himalayan sound healing is a practice in which hand-hammered metal singing bowls, gongs, tingsha and chimes are played around a person who is lying down, so that steady tone and vibration help the body settle into deep rest. In Nepal it belongs to a living cultural and spiritual tradition rather than to medicine. It is offered for relaxation, calm and peace of mind — nothing more, and nothing less.

A session is not a performance and it is not a massage. You are not asked to concentrate, to visualise anything, or to believe anything at all. You lie still, warm and fully clothed, and sound is made around you for an hour. Most people fall somewhere between sleeping and waking and stay there. That in-between place is the whole point.

People come to us for very ordinary reasons. They are not sleeping. Work has been heavy for a long time. They have been travelling and their body has not caught up. Something difficult has happened and they would like an hour where nothing is required of them. These are good reasons, and they are the reasons this practice is well suited to.

Where do singing bowls really come from?

The bowls sold worldwide as “Tibetan singing bowls” have overwhelmingly been made in Nepal. Nepali artisan families hammer them by hand from a metal alloy, working the sheet hot and turning it under the hammer until the wall thickness is right and the bowl sings. Kathmandu and the surrounding valley towns have supplied metalwork to monasteries across the Himalaya for many centuries — the Tibetan side had the patronage, and the Newar craftsmen of this valley had the hands.

The name is worth being straight about. Historical accounts of Tibetan music from the early twentieth century, and the records left by early travellers who documented healing practices in Tibet, do not describe singing bowls being used in the way they are used today. The strong likelihood is that “Tibetan singing bowl” is a later commercial name, attached in Western markets from roughly the 1970s onward, rather than a description of where the objects were made or how they were traditionally used.

We call them Himalayan bowls. It is more accurate, and it gives credit to the people who actually make them. If you walk through Patan or the older lanes of Kathmandu you can still hear the hammering.

What happens during a sound healing session?

You arrive and sit for a few minutes so we can talk quietly about how you are, whether anything hurts, and whether there is anything we should know. This is short and informal. If it is your first time, we will show you the instruments and let you touch them, because knowing what is about to make a noise near your head is calming.

Then you lie down on a mat with a blanket over you and something soft under your head. You stay fully clothed. Shoes come off. There is no oil, no pressure, and nothing that requires you to undress.

The session begins softly — often tingsha, once, and a long silence after it. Then a single large bowl, given time to open and fade completely before the next sound. For the first ten minutes or so, very little happens. This is deliberate: the body will not let go until it is convinced nothing is going to startle it.

As the session opens out, more bowls come in around you — behind the head, at the sides, near the feet. Some are struck; some are rimmed with a wooden wand so the tone rises and holds. Sometimes a bowl is placed directly on the body, on the chest, the belly or beside a shoulder, so that the vibration is felt as well as heard. If you would rather nothing touched you, say so beforehand and nothing will.

The gong, if it is used, comes near the middle and is played from the quietest edge of audibility upward. It is the largest sound in the room and the most enveloping.

Towards the end the sound thins out again, back to a single bowl, then tingsha, then nothing. The silence at the end is left unbroken for several minutes. Do not hurry to open your eyes. That last quiet stretch is where a good deal of the rest actually happens, and rushing it is the one thing that can waste a session.

A sixty-minute session is about forty-five minutes of sound with settling either side. A ninety-minute session gives more room at both ends and is what we suggest if you are very tired, very wound up, or coming only once.

What does the sound actually do?

We want to answer this honestly, which means answering it modestly.

What can be said with confidence is experiential and physical. Sustained, low, slowly decaying tones give the ear something undemanding to follow. Breathing tends to slow and lengthen by itself, without anyone being told to breathe. Muscles that have been held for weeks let go in stages — jaw first, usually, then shoulders. When a bowl is placed on the body you feel the vibration travel; it is a pleasant, slightly strange sensation, a bit like being purred at. People commonly report losing track of time entirely, which is a decent sign that the nervous system has stepped down out of alertness.

What can be said about research is smaller than the internet suggests. The most frequently cited study, by Goldsby and colleagues in 2017, followed sixty-two people through a singing bowl sound meditation and found significant reductions in tension, anger, fatigue and depressed mood immediately afterwards, with the effect on tension strongest of all, and strongest in people entirely new to it. That is a real and encouraging finding. It is also an observational study without a control group, measuring how people felt right after a restful hour. It supports what we say — that this is a good way to become calm. It does not support anything more than that, and we will not stretch it.

You will find claims elsewhere about specific frequencies tuning organs, dissolving disease, or repairing cells. We do not make those claims. There is no sound evidence for them, and making them would insult both the tradition and you.

Who is sound healing for?

It suits people who are tired in a way that sleep is not fixing. It suits people carrying long work stress, people who find seated meditation difficult because their mind will not sit still, and people who would like to try something contemplative without being asked to adopt a belief. It suits travellers who have arrived in Kathmandu carrying several time zones and a long flight.

It suits people who simply want to experience a Nepali tradition properly, with someone who practises it rather than performs it. That is a perfectly good reason to come, and a common one.

It also suits people who are grieving, or in a hard stretch of life, and want an hour where nothing is asked of them. We are not counsellors and we will not press you to talk. Some people cry during a session; it is common, nobody minds, and there is water and time afterwards.

Who should take care?

Please speak with your doctor before booking, and tell us what they say, if any of the following apply to you:

• Pregnancy. Many pregnant guests enjoy sound sessions, but bowls should not be placed on the body, and volume is kept low throughout. Tell us how many weeks you are.
• Epilepsy or any seizure disorder. Sustained sound and deep relaxation are not known to be a common trigger, but this is a decision for your doctor rather than for us.
• A pacemaker, cochlear implant, or metal implants and pins. Bowls are kept off the body entirely and played at a distance.
• Recent surgery, fractures, or any acute injury. Vibration near a healing site is avoided; lying flat may also be uncomfortable, and we can arrange a supported position.
• Serious mental health conditions, particularly psychosis or severe PTSD. Deep relaxation can occasionally bring difficult material close to the surface. Please come only with your clinician's agreement, and preferably with someone you trust.
• Severe tinnitus or acute ear pain or infection. Sustained tone may aggravate it.
• Very low blood pressure. You may feel light-headed on standing. Get up slowly and drink water.

None of this is a legal shield. It is what we would want to know if you were our own family, and telling us costs you nothing. A session can almost always be adapted — quieter, shorter, no contact, seated instead of lying — if we know in advance.

What should I wear, and what should I bring?

Wear loose, warm, comfortable clothes that you can lie down in for an hour without anything digging in. You stay fully clothed the whole time. Take off your watch and anything that presses.

Bring an extra layer or a pair of socks. Body temperature drops noticeably when you lie still for an hour, and being cold is the main thing that stops people relaxing. Blankets, mats and bolsters are provided.

Eat something light beforehand but not a full meal. Come a few minutes early rather than arriving out of breath. If you can, keep the hour after the session free.

How will I feel afterwards?

Most people feel loose, slowed down and pleasantly heavy — much the way you feel after a long unhurried sleep. Speech comes slowly for a while. Many people say the clearest effect arrives that night, in how well they sleep.

Some people feel unexpectedly emotional, either during or after. Some feel thirsty. A few feel briefly light-headed on standing, which is why we ask you to sit up slowly and drink water before you leave. If you have driven, sit a while before you get back in the car.

A small number of people feel a mild headache or a slightly heavy head for an hour or two. It passes with water and rest.

How often should I come?

There is no schedule you are supposed to keep, and we do not sell packages. Many people come once, for the experience, and that is complete in itself. People working through a long difficult stretch often find that once a fortnight suits them. People who live in Kathmandu and use it as maintenance tend to settle at once a month.

Come when it would help. That is the only guidance we have.

Learning the practice

We teach as well as practise. The Foundation runs sound healing classes and courses in Kathmandu — a five-day programme has already been delivered at Newa Chhe Yoga Sadhana Kendra — covering the bowls and how they are made, listening before playing, striking and rimming, how a session is laid out, and the care owed to whoever is lying down in front of you. That last part takes the longest to learn and matters the most.

About the sound healing course

Sitting with us in Kathmandu

Sessions are given at Naksal in Kathmandu by arrangement, and we also come to homes, guesthouses, offices and schools. A private session is offered from NPR 4,000. Every offering received brings free sessions to those who need peace most — schools, care homes and healing centres across Nepal.

If you would like to come, one message on WhatsApp is enough. You do not need to explain yourself, and there is nothing to book in advance beyond agreeing a time.