The Healing Balm of Music and Sound for Sensitive People

Empathic people love music. It is a balm for their sensitive souls. Listening to it, playing it, admiring it. Music can wash over and nurture you. It can elevate your spirit.

When you are feeling overloaded, the right music can elevate your spirit. Music therapy has been used to treat depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. Neuroscientists have found that tranquil music increases positive emotions and stimulates dopamine, the brain’s pleasure hormone—and that highly sensitive people may respond to music similarly to how they experience empathy.

Music that comforts you

Over the years, certain songs or musical artists might have helped you through breakups, disappointments, and periods of self-doubt. Other music may be linked with happy times such as when your first met your beloved, graduated from college, or visited an exotic place. Songs are markers for our lives and are also therapeutic.

Which music has comforted you? I associate Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair, Canticle” with my first love and also the painful experience of him leaving me. Listening to it feels melancholy, but rich, raw, and so real. When I’m stressed, I turn to devotional music such as Enya, Tina Malia, and Wah! Or Bach.

Chanting

Chanting is another dynamic way to utilize sound to heal. It involves singing your prayers to balance your system. This lifts you high above your daily concerns so you can feel your largeness and bliss. As the popularity of yoga has spread throughout the world, chanting sacred Sanskrit words such as Om has become popular. Om means peace and is thought to be a soundless sound that runs through the universe.

You can chant on your own or listen to recordings. If you’re chanting alone, start by choosing a mantra to chant which can come from your spiritual tradition. These include Om and Shalom for peace. Or, “Thy will be done.” Or, Aham Prema, which means, “I am divine love.” Or simply, “Let it be.” Keep repeating the mantra in a meditative state and allow yourself to sing it. You can also listen to ancient Gregorian chants or to Indian devotional music.

Kirtan performances

I enjoy Kirtan performances. This is a call-and-response type of devotional chant set to music. The singers repeat a sacred phrase or story, then the audience repeats it. There can be dancers and drumming, as well as the ancient mystical sound of the harmonium. The audience often moves and dances spontaneously. As long as it doesn’t feel overstimulating, being in a group can amplify the therapeutic effects of chanting.

Set your intention and let yourself dance

Let yourself dance to the music, meditate to it, and let it lift you up beyond the details of everyday life to the realm of inspiration and the muse.