Those who live or visit in Summit County are typically pretty active. As soon as the snow begins to fly on the Western Slope, people are swapping out their summer gear for their winter gear in preparation for all the activity snow-covered mountains allows their guests. 

But once you have had your fun on the mountain, a massage could be just the thing to send you further into bliss. Some owners of local studios recommend not just any massage, but a sound massage — sometimes called a sound bath or sound healing. 

What it is 

“Sound healing is a form of healing that uses different vibrations to heal the body and the mind and the spirit,” said Alison Duncan, who calls herself a bodyworker at Breckenridge Mountain Massage. 

Duncan said the use of sound healing dates back long ago when ancient cultures would use vibration to clear blocked or “stuck” energy, which is low vibrational emotions.

“When you’re using sound, say in a massage or just alone, it calms the mind and it brings the body into a state of relaxation,” Duncan said. 

How it works

Typically, a studio will use crystal or metal bowls — or both — and run tuning forks or a wand along the rim to create a sound. It can be paired with a massage or performed alone. 

“The frequency or the vibration, it travels through the tissues of the body, and in that process, it changes the body’s frequency,” said Inanna Hall, owner of Harmony Wellness and Pure O2 Oxygen Spa. “We can actually measure it … It’s like a song or good music, you’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, that feels really good to my body.’ Sound has been used for a long, long time.”

From there, each studio offers a little something different. Some have group services or will travel to perform the service on-site. Others have a specialty. Oriah Sage, owner of Feel Better Massage, said she specializes in pain management, which includes both physical or mental pain. 

“There’s so many stressed out people, even before COVID, and a lot of times that stress manifests in the body,” Sage said. “So I feel that my job is to help people open up more to their higher level of being, and the only way we can do that is by destressing the body, find where the body is holding tension and see where that’s coming from, whether that’s a physical injury or an emotional injury.”  

Why it works 

Those skilled in massage therapy say that the biggest benefit of sound healing is that each person gets something different out of it. 

“It can be very subtle — it can be soft and subtle — or it be strong feeling to the person,” Hall said. “So each person may experience it very differently, and that sound and frequency can actually align the energy centers in the body and open and help regulate the energy centers.” 

Hall said most of the time, people can feel a tangible difference after sound healing in that they feel more peace and calmness. Other experts like her, including Duncan, agreed this was a common outcome after a session. 

“The singing bowls help to balance the left and right brain of the body in different ways. … In most people, the left or the right side of the brain is more dominant so sound healing works on both sides of the brain to develop areas where someone may be weak or may need to improve communication between both brain waves,” Duncan said.

This story was originally published in the Winter 2022-23 edition of Explore Summit magazine.