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Being able to relieve stress in a healthy way is the best form of self-care. If yoga or stillness meditation is not something that has worked previously, one form of self-care that could help soothe the mind and body is a sound bath. A sound bath is a live performance of soothing ambient sounds played by a sound healer that will guide you through deep meditation in hopes of healing the mind and body.

With the added stress of this pandemic, self-care practices like sound baths are now more important than ever. Hannah Rush is a sound healer from Des Moines who discovered this art three years ago and now owns a sound bath business in West Des Moines called Resonate Healing.Before Rush was introduced to sound baths, she had just finished college and was amid the stress of trying to figure out her life after school. Rush was introduced to this practice by a friend of hers named Kate Coppola who invited her along to a sound bath she was performing in an old church gym. Rush instantly found it to be a stress-relieving practice that she didn’t know she needed.

“It was this, pure blissful moment of ‘Wow, I need more of this in my life,” Rush said.

She wanted to find out more. So she traveled to Los Angeles, where sound baths are quite common. This is where Rush studied sound alchemy under Ana Netanel and learned how to use ancient gong practices and crystal bowl techniques for sound healing. Rush went on to further her study and learned under Grammy award-winning Harijiwan and Gurujas of the White Sun while also studying with Guru Jagat, Tej and Hannah Muse. Rush saw how much sound healing helped her, and she wanted to share it and had passed it on to her own community.” Rush uses the knowledge she gained from her teachers in sound baths she now performs here in Des Moines. A sound bath is usually performed in a studio similar to a yoga studio. There are mats on the floor, instruments at the front and a sound healer who performs the sounds used for meditation. Once someone is comfortable on a mat on the floor, a Paiste gong will be played first to “clear out all the energies. It is the same frequency as nature (432 Hertz),” Rush said. Rush believes that her sound healing helps people sleep, as she takes people through the different stages of sleep. When attending one of her sound baths,

“You lay down like you’re going to go to sleep… a lot of people do fall asleep actually, and it is kind of encouraged sometimes to get that relaxed and that comfortable,” Rush said.

Rush then plays her seven quartz crystal singing bowls. There is one for each chakra to tune someone into their body. This is where the healing part takes place. The music will play for an hour or so, and by the end, deep relaxation will be achieved. Sound baths are a modern term for an art that works at healing the body and calming the mind. This art has been used for thousands of years. Music has been used throughout human history to help people become more mindful, and in doing so aid is though to as in healing the human body. For example, the ancient Greeks that would use sound vibrations to help with digestion and to induce sleep. Aristotle believed that flute sounds could purify the soul.

At the end of the 19th century, researchers at a hospital in Paris discovered a correlation between sound and healing. Music proved to lower blood pressure and aid the parasympathetic nervous system. People often have one specific song that calms them down or increases their mood. It is almost exactly like that with deep meditation being soothing for one’s mind. Rush hosts performances where she particularly focuses on putting people into a similar state of sleep. Rush takes her client’s mind and body through the different stages of sleep activating Alpha and Theta brainwaves which are also active during REM sleep. Rush believes this is the best way of healing people through sound.

“Sleep is where we do our most important healing,” Rush said.