How to Use Sound to Heal: A Practical Guide to Tuning Out the Noise and Tuning Into Yourself

City Traffic 

I wake up every morning to a steady roar of traffic below my apartment. I imagine bleary-eyed federal workers on their way down into DC from the suburbs. They’ve had enough coffee to operate a vehicle and to precariously check their email while they drive. Once they arrive, they are greeted by spreadsheets and suits. 

This is what we call “professional.”

I feel…less professional. Typically, I don’t set an alarm in the morning. I wake up to the sound of my tuxedo cat begging for food. I start going about my morning routine. On a good day this consists of morning journaling, sometimes a jog, usually some yoga and a tarot card pull. By the end of it I always feel…embarrassed.  

I should be commuting to work with the whir of cars. I should be more “professional.” 

Loud Brain

The truth is — this comparison is outdated. In 2025, the pandemic has radically shifted what is expected and “normal” in terms of office workers. Most people’s commute has changed a lot. Probably half of the building is working from home, or on some sort of hybrid schedule. But my conception of what’s “normal” (high achievement, diligence, butt-in-seat) has taken a while to shift in my very loud brain.

My mornings are also not all good vibes. I am often overtaken by a sense of foreboding and nausea. For six months of last year I would throw up every morning. At the time, I was working part-time at a bakery next door. I adjusted my in-person work schedule so that I started in the afternoons. The sound of the ancient bread slicer behind the register would pound until my head did as well and I would hide in the bathroom. 

I made my morning routine more supportive. I did an entire gastroenterological work up but doctors didn’t have an explanation for me. 

The first thing that seemed to significantly help me was sound. 

Sound Baths  

In late July, a few months after the morning vomiting started, I signed up for a Friday night session of restorative yoga and singing bowls. I had been to a sound bath once before as a splurge to meet up with a friend, but this new option was part of a sliding scale package at a local studio and became part of my weekly routine. 

I could feel a shift in my body and mind. It was also financially accessible enough, so I kept coming back.

The experience is deeply calming. We begin by lying down in a restorative pose, arranging the props in a series of supportive poses we are encouraged to transition slowly between. The sound builds steadily from the bowls. My teacher traces methodical circles on the inner perimeter of the crystal vessels. Each of the bowls are tuned to different musical notes and they layer over each other. 

The vibrations travel through the wood beams and into our mats. The experience is deeply relaxing. My mind typically enters a hypnagogic state without fully falling asleep. 

After that July evening at sound bath, it was the first time I didn’t throw up the next morning.

Binaural Beats 

Having seen the benefits of prioritizing rest, I was inspired to take a much needed vacation a few weeks later. July marked the end of my graduate program in Health Communication Design and the beginning of a healing journey. I tapped into several groups for chronically ill people, including the Chronic Boss Collective. In a writing retreat through a British group called the remote body, I asked for some tips on dealing with nervous system dysregulation. 

One person typed “binaural beats” in the chat. I looked up what this meant. 

According to WebMD, “A binaural beat is an illusion created by your brain when you listen to two tones with slightly different frequencies at the same time, one in each ear. Some early research suggests that listening to binaural beats can change your brainwaves. Studies have looked at whether binaural beats can help you with stress, anxiety, focus, and more.” 

I found binaural beats playlists on Spotify and put them on during particularly rough mornings. At the recommendation of my therapist, sometimes I would listen to these playlists for entire days.I passed the wisdom along to a Chronic Boss member who was struggling with sleep. Now it’s a tool in her insomnia toolbelt. 

White Noise 

Although lately I have been augmenting it with binaural beats, a tool that I have relied on for the past several years for sleep has been a white noise machine. This was originally recommended to me by a roommate who lived with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. They had reoriented to a more nocturnal schedule to ease pressure on rough mornings accompanied by incidents of rib dislocations or other hypermobile mishaps. I tried several different models but ultimately chose the original model recommendation this roommate suggested. 

Here are the different sound machines I’ve tried: 

1. I started with a Yogasleep Travel Mini Sound Machine to test whether white noise helped. I found it to be helpful, but the sound quality on the mini wasn’t great.
2. I upgraded to a Yogasleep Dreamcenter Multi Sound Machine with Nightlight in order to have a few more options including a timer and a better speaker. 
3. When I started working 6:30am bakery shifts, a teacher friend recommended a sunrise alarm to me. I found an iHome Sunrise Alarm Clock with Sleep Sounds and USB Charging. A couple years in, this began to make an annoying buzzing sound, specifically when I plugged in a USB charger.
4. I recently settled on a Yogasleep Dohm® Sound Machine when I stopped caring about what time I woke up. I also wanted to avoid keeping a cell phone plugged in next to my pillow. This is the “gold standard” of the sound machine with real fan noise rather than electronic noise. You might have encountered these outside of a therapist’s office.

Bird Songs 

Having had success with bowls, binaural beats, and bedside machines, I am a believer in the healing properties of sound. 

In my day-to-day life, I’ve been experimenting with mindfully focusing on pleasant sounds around me on a regular basis. Walking around the city and listening for birds in the morning or driving out to a destination to do a more intensive bird walk with binoculars has been a joyful addition to my schedule. 

AI can now help me track the birds I hear while on these expeditions. 

No longer throwing up daily and booking myself more vacations, I found time this summer in Madison to visit a fellow birder friend of mine who has known me since college. While we were out in the Wisconsin prairie, walking on boardwalks among the fields of native plants, she remarked that I have always had a musical ear. I think of myself as a visual person, but it’s been wonderful to explore the multisensory as a designer and as a human. 

Together, this friend and I followed the dinosaur-like caws of a group of massive Sandhill Cranes down a winding path in the early sunlight.

Mindful Music

Try this out: listen to your favorite music and try and pick out the instruments in what you are hearing. A friend of mine from the Chronic Boss Collective, Meredith Mangold, Founder and CEO of Empower Health Strategies and pop punk enthusiast, taught me this tip. She picked it up from a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction training. She finds that listening for the drums to be the most accessible and rhythmic to follow. Listening to your surroundings can help you get in touch with your body and calm your brain.