Mysterious Meditation Bowl - How to use singing bowls

Mysterious Meditation Bowl – How to use singing bowls

A girl meditating using singing bowl
A girl meditating using singing bowl

Sounds and music works great in improving the mood of a person. By reducing the amount of stress causing cortisol in the body and boosting your immune system, music can do wonder in calming you down. And, when it comes to sound, nothing can level the effectiveness of a meditation or singing bowl. The vibrations produced by a singing bowl has an intensifying effect on your body and soul that makes you feel relaxed physically, mentally and spiritually.

Meditation bowl is a distinctive bowl that in particular is made up of alloys. This metal alloy bowl when hit with a mallet produces a sound and vibration that has a soothing effect on your body and mind. This vibration can actually alleviate stress and depression, lower your blood pressure and improve your sleep quality along with relaxing your body. If you are also eager to know about how you can use meditation bowl for such purpose, keep on reading and find bleow:

What is singing bowl?

A metal singing bowl and mallet
A metal singing bowl and a mallet

A singing bowl is a bowl that typically is made of a mixture of different metals that produces a special sound when stuck by a mallet. This simple phenomenon has been used since ancient times in Tibet and areas around as a successful sound therapy method. First discovered by the spiritual travelers of the Himalayas and later on popularised by the Chinese invaders, this method is still that good in giving your body a sense of deep relaxation.

There are even a few theories explaining how this Tibetan sound therapy can affect the mind and body through vibrations, enhance relaxation by impacting our brain waves and show the same psychological advantages that are offered by listening to music. Undoubtedly, Tibetan monks have been using this therapy since a long time.

How to use meditation bowl?

Girl placed meditation bowl on her hand
Girl placed meditation bowl on her hand

If you are also interested to use singing bowl in your meditation routine to give it a kick-start, you can follow just a few simple steps. You can place the meditation bowl on your body (like on belly) or near your body and can keep changing it’s angles at different points of time.

The simplest way to use singing bowl in meditation is to just strike it on with the help of a mallet. All you need to do is to simply hold the mallet with your dominant hand, place the bowl at a reachable distance and then gently hit the mid side part of the bowl. This will release a soft and gentle vibrational sound. Let the vibration flow around your ears and body. Don’t strike the bowl again until the vibration is completely passed.

If you want another boost to this easy striking technique to upscale your meditation session, you can try rimming with mallet that can give more deep vibrations. You can start by sitting in a comfortable position, holding the mallet with your dominant hand with a grip in the center. Grip it like a pen. Place the bowl in the desired place and strike the bowl’s rim with mallet in a vertical position and immediately circle the rim of bowl in a clockwise direction just as you’re stirring a pot from outside.

While doing so, it is important to make circle using your full arm support and not just your wrist. This will give a sweet female overtone that will get sweeter and sweeter as you make the contact between bowl and mallet firmer and firmer. This warm sound will harmonize with your body cells and kill all the toxins present in your brain by stimulating it’s both sides.

Benefits of singing bowl

Along with relaxing you down, singing bowl has many other benefits
Along with relaxing you down, singing bowl has many other benefits

Singing bowl works wonder for your overall health. You can get following benefits by adopting singing bowl in your normal meditation routine.

It’s sound stimulates the calming brain waves

The buzzing sound produced by a singing bowl can stimulate the calm brain waves. The alpha and theta waves present in your brain are calmed with the sound of bowl. This vibration works on the energy field of your body. This results into a therapeutic state where your mind and body feel peaceful and gets relaxed.

Can lower your blood pressure

While there are not any big researches that proves the fact, a few studies however have shown that the sound of meditation bowl can actually even your blood pressure. There is a reduction in your systolic blood pressure and heart rate as your body and spirit rejuvenate themselves in that healing sound.

Great for spiritual wellness

The healing vibrations of singing bowl works on your brain giving you a positive spiritual experience. You get a good feeling about yourself while being connected with yourself that results into an experience of bliss. The intense sound reaches your soul and promotes your energy levels. The seven Chakras inherent in our body also get cleansed with such vibration.

Boosts your physical health

A person who practices meditation with the help of singing bowl will notice many positive changes in his body. The whole therapeutic experience can soothe your muscles and improve your digestive system and blood circulation. The harmonizing sound results in elimination of toxins from your body. All the molecules, tissues and organs of your body work in a better way resulting into an improved immune system. One research has proved that meditation bowl can even lower the intensity of chronic spinal pain and gives you relief.

Reduces stress

As said earlier, nothing can match the effectiveness of sound therapy in relaxing you down. Your mood gets better as you enjoy the vibrational sound of the bowl and any stress that you are struggling with gets easily alleviated. No doubt, it can be the low cost method of fighting against depression.

Can improve sleep

As singing bowl stimulates the calm brain nerves and relaxes your body by reducing stress, it’s sound can help in improving your sleep.

Such benefits clearly shows that singing bowl is used for purposes like reducing depression, stimulating immune system, relieving from pain, harmonizing body cells and boosting performance of other healing practices.

Dangers of singing bowl

While normally save, a singing bowl can be dangerous in certain conditions
while normally save, a singing bowl can be dangerous in certain conditions

While singing bowl is considered a very safe method for relaxation purposes with almost no side effects, you should note that the use of singing bowl causes intense vibrations around the body. People with certain health conditions should avoid it. If you have any metal component in your body, you shouldn’t use this sound therapy as the vibrations can affect the component badly. The placebo effect may help you feel relaxed but it won’t necessarily be helpful when trying to lower blood pressure, depression or respiratory rate.

Also, if you’re prone to headaches, you should avoid using this therapy by keeping the bowl very close to your body. And, since it has negative effect when placed on body, pregnant women shouldn’t seek this method for meditation.

How to choose the best singing bowl

Different types of singing bowl
Different types of singing bowl

After knowing about all the benefits and various uses of singing bowl, if you are also interested to purchase a singing bowl for meditation, you should be a little careful. It is important to know that different types of bowls releases different types of vibrations affecting our body differently. While starting using singing bowls, you should purchase the one which is not too big.

As a beginner, you should purchase a small bowl for meditation. The best size of singing bowl to buy in starting is of 5 to 6 inches. As you progress, you can look for a bigger size bowl. Choose a bowl that is made up of good layers of metal alloy as it gives the best vibrational experience.

Meditation of singing bowls are an intriguing option to try. With its amazing effect on your physical and mental fitness, sound produced by a meditation bowl gives an authentic spiritual experience. You can easily incorporate this instrument in your meditation session to give it an interesting twist. With the steps explained above, you can get all the good benefits that it’s vibration offer. Keep experimenting by placing the bowl in different points of your body or around the body. And, just strike it on and feel the relaxation.