English Version | Don’t be afraid of letting go

We know music can be therapeutic and that silence has healing powers. But this is about the sound and vibration of a therapy with thousands of years. It isn’t magic but people who experience the power of these instruments might make you think otherwise. 

We hear of them as “alternative therapies” and we frown in suspicion, but people who try these alternative therapies - we can assure that the quotation marks have no place here - tell us about benefits as an improvement in the quality of sleep, stress reduction, better self-esteem, and overall wellness feeling and the improvement of symptoms in cases of fibromyalgia (a disease that causes chronic pain). People who try them also share that they end up surrendering themselves to the power of sound and vibration and even the ones who are more skeptical end up scheduling regular sessions and even enrolling in classes to learn how to use these instruments, tells us Miguel Lourenço, former Message, and Tibetan bowls Therapist. Miguel has been teaching Sound Therapy with Tibetan bowls since 2013 in the Escola Internacional de Taças Tibetanas. “When we play the singing bowls two things happen: sound and vibration. The human is both a physical and spiritual being and the harmonic vibration of the bowls will make the water in our body also vibrate harmoniously. That will stimulate our organs, muscles, and tendons. Simultaneously, the sound will interact with our mind and if it is harmonic it will generate harmony, relieving stress and helps us relax very easily. It works the mind and the body at the same time”. Besides Tibetan Singing Bowls, which Miguel has known for a bit longer, he always teaches people to use Planetary Gongs - an instrument that only arrived in Europe 20 years ago, but Portugal has only known recently. “The main difference between these two sound therapies is that the gongs are made with nickel - the Chinese gongs made with bronze have been around for thousands of years but aren’t as effective as therapy instruments since this metal is considered chaotic. The frequencies released by the planetary gongs are much lower and when we listen to them in a therapy session, we can reap the benefits much faster and more efficiently than what happens with the Tibetan Singing Bowls. The Bowls are more delicate, softer, they have a feminine energy. The gongs have male energy, they are more intense, stronger, faster. But you have to hear them, this is very hard to describe. I would like everyone to have this experience”, explains Miguel. The sessions with both instruments can last 45 minutes to an hour and they can be individual or in a group. “When used in an individual session, the Tibetan Singing Bowls are placed directly on the body, according to a certain protocol”, says the expert. “The Westerns were the ones to find out about the benefits of this therapy to both body and mind and the Bowls have to follow certain guidelines: they can’t have any dangerous metals like mercury and lead and they must be a certain size, have certain frequencies and amounts of vibration. The end goal is that at the end of the session the patient feels much lighter, mentally and physically stronger and with reduced levels of stress. People who get used to this therapy start sleeping better and feel better in terms of self-esteem and self-love (and this happens due to sound and music). In a group session, the Bowls can’t be placed directly on the body and, because of that, they are efficient but not as efficient as in an individual session. The same happens with the gongs, but they are never placed directly on the patient (in an individual session they lay behind the gong and for that, the gongs have to be made with nickel not to hurt the ears and to ensure an overall well-being sensation). In a group session and since the gong has a very strong vibrating power, the vibrating waves travel easily through the room”. In Portugal, there aren’t certifications or regulations of this practice, but Miguel, assures that the therapy is safe and easy to perform, not requiring any prerequisite (either musical or therapeutic). “I usually say that both the bowls and the gongs are played with the heart and not really with the hands - and even less with the head because de Men tends to overthink and overcomplicate what is simple. We teach everything that has been discovered about the Tibetan Bowls since this therapy was born in Austria and discovered by trial and error. Three years ago we bought this biofeedback American technology [also known as quantum biofeedback, it is a therapeutic technology that energetically analyzes and harmonizes stress factors responsible for diseases and imbalances in our body] and we conducted a bunch of experiments in which the patient lays down, places his hand on a sensor that will read the information the body is sending and the machine interprets the data it gets from the patient. With this, we were able to understand that sound and vibration emitted by certain bowls - according to size, weight, and thickness - interacts with certain parts of the body. This tool was extremely important since it allowed us to understand how the patient is feeling before, during, and after the therapy - since the sessions are conducted in silence and there is no interaction with the patient”, Miguel tells us. The expert adds that the therapist in the sessions is the sound itself and not the person who is playing the instruments, and that means that you don’t have to possess any special talent besides the will to learn and share the experience. 

Translated from the original, as part of Vogue Portugal's Music Issue, published in June 2021.