Sound therapy is an ancient practice and in many ways, we all practice it. While simply listening to music for mood enhancement can be considered a form of sound therapy, formal sound therapy involves a therapeutic setting where patients are exposed to specific sounds and frequencies as part of a prescribed healing process.
Sound healing is not only a source of relaxation but catharsis. It has been shown to help with a wide variety of conditions as well as overall mental and spiritual well-being. However, sound therapy is not widely prescribed by physicians as evidenced by a small-sample internal poll on Sermo, with only 12% regularly recommending it to patients, and 26% occasionally recommending it. But, this article may alter your opinion, using Sermo community insights to shed light on practical ways you can help patients with this low-cost, all-natural therapy.
What is sound therapy?
Sound therapy, also called audio therapy, encompasses a wide variety of techniques that use sound, frequency and auditory vibrations to promote physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
Does sound therapy really work? Research is ongoing, but both scientific evidence and anecdotes indicate promising benefits. For example, mindfulness meditations and singing bowls have been used for centuries to lower blood pressure and heart rate while reducing tension, anxiety, and depression.
There are a variety of sound therapy modalities:
- Music therapy – music therapists use music to help people with stress, PTSD, and other psychological and behavioral issues. This is a bit more than just listening to a “relaxation playlist,” as the music is carefully chosen based on the patient’s specific needs.
- Sound baths – during a sound bath, the patient sits or lies in a comfortable position and listens to sounds such as singing bowls, chimes, and gongs in a focused manner. The goal is to have the sound wash over them. This may induce relaxation and helps people to process traumatic memories and stressful emotions.
- Binaural beats – binaural beats are special sounds where tones of slightly different frequencies are played. When done right, this is perceived as an auditory illusion, a third tone equivalent to the difference. Binaural beats may have some of the same benefits as meditation, including better sleep and pain management, but studies are still preliminary.
- Therapeutic ultrasound – therapeutic ultrasound differs from the others in that it is used for physical healing. Ultrasound produces deep heating in tissues in the body, encouraging the healing of muscles, tendons, joints, and ligaments. It is most often used as part of physical therapy when recovering from an accident or surgery.
- Guided meditation with sound – meditation carries numerous benefits, including reduced stress, improved focus, lowered anxiety, and improved self-awareness. This type of sound frequency therapy is used to help induce a meditative state, implementing voice, music, and nature sounds.
Sound therapy can help with mental, emotional, and physical wellness. Other than therapeutic ultrasound, however, the medical community is not entirely convinced of the benefits. It is possible that sound vibrations may impact cellular activity, and we know that sound can affect your brain waves, inducing relaxation through brainwave entrainment. It’s also possible that sound can stimulate the vagal nerve, another mechanism to create relaxation and lower stress.
Clinical applications & benefits
So, what conditions can sound therapy help with? Mental health is the most obvious, including the mental health of people dealing with chronic conditions, terminal illness, or infertility. 81% of U.S.-based physicians polled on Sermo said that stress and anxiety reduction is the benefit most supported by science.
Patients with these conditions, among others, may benefit from sound therapy:
- Chronic pain: sound baths and binaural beats have been shown in some studies to help with pain management, potentially reducing dependence on medication. However, the research is limited and more high-quality studies are needed to draw complete conclusions about the effect of sound therapy on pain perception.
- Anxiety and stress: sound therapy reduces overall stress and may help people with generalized anxiety disorder and other anxiety-related conditions.
- Depression: sound therapy could help patients with depression. Singing bowls, for example, help to regulate or elevate mood and reduce feelings of tension and depression, but further research is needed on this application of sound therapy.
- Insomnia: 56% of surveyed physicians agree sleep improvement is the most supported benefit of sound therapy. Although not extensively studied, sound therapies and the use of music can help as part of a bedtime routine to help people relax, induce a sense of calm, and distract from excessive rumination before sleep.
- Cognitive and behavioral issues: music therapy can help people with ADHD focus, and has proven useful for people with autism in some studies. 32% of surveyed physicians agree enhanced focus and mental clarity is the most supported benefit of sound therapy.
- Palliative care and hospice: patients dealing with terminal illness (and their families) can benefit from sound therapy to help reduce psychological distress. A 2025 study showed that high-resolution natural sound therapy for terminally ill cancer patients significantly improved healing, reduced anxiety, tiredness, and shortness of breath, and enhanced sleep satisfaction
- Rehabilitation: therapeutic ultrasound can greatly increase healing time from some injuries, but audio therapy can also help with PTSD after an accident and other emotional issues. In cardiovascular rehabilitation, music therapy has been shown to improve healing.
- Pediatric: when young kids experience stress and trauma, it can be hard to counsel them, but audio therapy could be an option for children who are too young to talk or logically work through traumas. It has also shown promise to improve concentration in children with ADHD and decrease distress in emergency situations.
- PTSD: sound therapy can help people with PTSD by aiding emotional regulation and desensitization to sound triggers. It can help renormalise the stress response as well as help with emotional control and disassociation.
- Alzheimer’s: patients with Alzheimer’s who receive music therapy need less medication and show improvement in neuropsychiatric symptoms such as distress.
While sound therapy has demonstrated benefits for mood enhancement and relaxation, current applications discussed here have not been extensively studied in rigorous clinical trials and require further high-quality research to better understand their mechanisms, optimize protocols, and validate therapeutic efficacy across populations.
When to consider referring patients for sound therapy
Sound therapy is always a complementary therapy used as part of an overall treatment plan. Physicians who think their patients may benefit can refer them to an appropriate sound therapist. Make sure to refer patients to quality providers who have appropriate certifications in sound therapy training and/or to evidence-based programs.
When Sermo polled physicians, asking “Have you ever recommended sound therapy (e.g., music, nature sounds, tuning forks) to patients?”, only 12% referred patients to sound therapy regularly and another 26% did so occasionally. 28% rarely recommended sound therapy to patients, and another 28% never have.
It’s important to note that patients should be instructed to manage their expectations. Sound therapy is not an instant cure. However, in some cases, it can help reduce symptoms and may allow patients to take fewer psychiatric medications. When correctly done, sound therapy has few to no side effects. For patients with cancer, sound therapy can help with mental health issues and the psychological side effects of undergoing chemotherapy and immunotherapy, but it cannot cure the underlying disease itself.
For example, studies show that sound therapy is less effective for tinnitus than often believed, and the use of ambient sound may be just as good. These limitations should be kept in mind.
Many physicians also have little knowledge about how sound therapy actually works and may not refer patients because they don’t understand it. 6% of surveyed physicians on Sermo were unfamiliar with sound therapy and its potential benefits. However, the reported benefits do indicate that physicians should be more willing to refer patients with stress and anxiety, who may gain significant relief from sound therapy.
Navigating the validity of sound therapy in medicine
There is a lot of noise and hype surrounding the validity of sound healing in medicine. Unproven and pseudoscientific claims are common. There are many online sound healing training courses that claim to certify sound therapists, but are not from accredited organizations. In some cases, these schools are approaching sound therapy as part of a legitimate spiritual or cultural tradition, but this should not be seen as the same thing as rigorous training in modern medical psychology. However, patients may still receive emotional and spiritual benefit from sound healing simply as a form of meditation and often anecdotally report ‘feeling better’.
There is still a gap in research regarding sound healing devices such as singing bowls, which are heavily used in meditation in parts of Asia. One challenge is navigating the fact that these are cultural traditions and physicians should be sensitive when dealing with them. At the same time, patients should be cautioned to avoid practitioners who trained online and are neither accredited psychologists nor properly trained spiritual advisers.
Doctors should refer patients only to practitioners who have rigorous and verified modern sound healing training from research-based institutions. For example, in rare cases there have been recorded issues with singing bowls triggering seizures in some individuals, causing pacemakers and other implants to malfunction, and damaging the hearing of children, although the clinical evidence of these effects is limited.
Sound baths can also cause extreme emotional catharsis. While this may be beneficial, without professional help it can make the patient’s emotional health worse instead of better. People with PTSD in particular should engage in sound therapy only under the supervision of a trained professional.
Key takeaways
Sound frequency therapy can be useful and have benefits for patients, especially for those suffering from stress, anxiety, and PTSD. It can be part of the overall care plan for complex conditions, cognitive disorders, and palliative care. However, physicians should be careful with referrals, retaining cultural sensitivity while encouraging patients to use only fully trained practitioners.
More research is needed on how sound therapy can help people with a wide variety of physical and mental health conditions. As our understanding evolves, the usefulness of sound therapy increases, but care should still be taken to maintain scientific rigor and it should be used in conjunction with other peer-reviewed treatments.
Physicians who want to understand sound therapy and consider how it might help their patients can get peer advice on Sermo. Our community of over a million doctors includes members just like you – and physicians who have practical, real-world experience prescribing sound therapy and many other modern wellness techniques with success.
- It’s an ancient practice with modern relevance: sound therapy has deep historical roots and is gaining renewed scientific interest for its therapeutic potential.
- Diverse modalities: it encompasses various techniques, from sound baths and binaural beats to targeted vibrations, each with distinct applications.
- Complementary role: audio therapy can be a valuable adjunct to conventional treatments, particularly for stress, pain, and mental health.
- Evidence and ethics: physicians must evaluate the growing evidence base and understand ethical considerations for responsible integration.
