The importance of resonance
Author: Miroslav Großer, Birge Funke
Sound and voice are essential parts of the human being. They serve for joy and also for healing. The article gives an overview of the amazing effect of sound and voice on us and others. And it describes some practical exercises to use sound vibrations for our physical and mental health.
Even Pythagoras had the idea that music played by humans is a reflection of cosmic music, music of the spheres. Therefore it can have a beneficial effect on humans, since in his eyes the definition of health means the harmony of humans and the cosmos. Singing is demonstrably healthy: it makes us happy. It improves our posture, gets the circulation going, has a positive effect on blood pressure. Also it strengthens the autonomic nervous system, the psyche and the immune system.
In a study in the 1990s, researchers examined 12,000 people of all ages and found that those who sing have a significantly higher life expectancy than those who do not sing regularly. Why is that, and what does the research say? Whether solo or in a choir, researchers agree that it takes about 20 to 30 minutes of singing for the following effects to occur:
- the body releases its own happiness hormones
- Endorphin is produced (relieves pain, makes you happy)
- Serotonin is produced (makes you happy, regulates appetite and body temperature, important for blood clotting)
- Dopamine is formed (controls movement, coordination and concentration, promotes blood circulation)
- Cortisol (stress hormone) is reduced
- adrenaline (stress hormone) is released
- the pineal gland is stimulated
Voice and health
Singing together also releases oxytocin – a “bonding hormone”. For example, sex, prolonged hugs, and when mothers breastfeed their children produces this.
It is not for nothing that people say “I resonate with you” or “I tune in with you”. People didn’t actively think up all these phrases. They felt and expressed out of an inner need to describe the feeling of resonance with others as clearly as possible. Although words are hardly able to describe this experience. These phrases show what people have always felt:
Singing connects.
Human is a social being, dependent on others, he wants to belong to a group because he cannot survive without it.
THE INNER VOICE
With our inner voices we significantly determine our inner experience.
This is easily understood by the example of the inner critic, who changes our feelings very intensly, depending on how this voice comments on the current behavior. With the physical voice, on the other hand, we decisively determine our experience in the outside world. It is, so to speak, the sum of all the often unreflected weighting relationships of the inner voices. This is especially evident in communities of all kinds, where the way of communication significantly influences and changes group events. If we want to bring both into so-called harmony, then we need the inner and outer voices to converge. Bring the inner and the outer experience into a harmonious resonance. How can this succeed?
First, we need a new awareness of the reality-shaping power of our inner and outer voices. Because this is a complex process in connection with our role identities, which we live on our inner levels and (can) show only partially authentically and truthfully on the outside. Thus a differentiated perception of the team of our inner and outer voices is a first base. With this we can bring the different needs and hierarchies into a harmonious structure. This is comparable to a social order, which ideally promotes a mutual flow of information between all levels and all participants.
EXERCISE NO. 1: “IN DIALOGUE WITH THE VOICE”.
For the following meditation, please sit comfortably and upright and close your eyes. Calm and deepen your breath until you are completely in contact with yourself. Then ask yourself: What would my voice look like if it had a shape and was a being? Calmly look at the inner images that arise and feel your voice again. Then begin a dialogue with it, greet it and ask interested questions, such as, “Is there something you want to tell me or show me?” “How are you feeling today?” “What do you wish for?” “How can I support you?”
After each answer, give thanks and integrate it before asking the next question. Feel what you want to communicate to your voice and your experience with it. You may also get a specific impulse. Then trust your intuition and put the impulse into action immediately. This can happen on the inner level as well as sonically and physically. Use the strong connection to declare a new commitment to yourself about how you will use your voice in the future.
The importance of resonance
If you have favorite phrases that really resonate with you, it’s worth singing them and not just saying them inwardly or out loud. Because when you sing, the effect of the words and the sound of your voice is noticeably more complex.
That’s because your brain’s entire neural network fires electrical signals throughout your body when you sing.
In addition, it is possible that when we sing we experience a multidimensionality that, with the appropriate emotional charge, combined with optimal mental alignment, can trigger the famous goose bumps and a deep soul experience. Thus the contents of the sung sentences are anchored also more deeply and more callably in the cells of the singing. So please choose only the most valuable messages that you want to establish as reality in your life, because that is the great potential of this exercise. You can also apply this defining principle of in-FORMation of matter to the voice itself, by singing phrases about it and your relationship to it. Or even about your health! Here’s a tried-and-true phrase for this as an example: “I am absolutely pure, whole, and perfectly healthy on all levels of my being.”
Have fun experimenting with your unique voice
with sonorous greetings
Birge Funke and Miroslav Großer
About the authors
Birge Funke (singer, yoga teacher and managing director of bamboo yoga in Berlin) and Miroslav Grosser (voice coach of holistic voice education, musician and overtone singer) got to know each other through their collaboration at the bamboo yoga bhakti yoga teacher training. This training enables interested people to learn deeply about the natural power of voice in community and to develop the courage and know-how to pass on the experiences and insights gained. As a lecturer of this training Miroslav teaches “Holistic Voice Work” with the orientation to make all levels of the human being in their interconnectedness sensually experienceable through the power of sound.
Birge Funke and her yoga studio bamboo yoga Berlin:
www.bamboo-yoga.de
Miroslav Großer and his voice lab FREIKLANG Berlin:
www.stimmlabor.de
This article appeared originally on the German Homepage Tattva Viveka: Stimme und Gesundheit
