Soundscapes and Sound Blankets

Wellness, or a sense of improving and maintaining your wellbeing has impacted countless industries from tourism, food, travel, beauty, exercise, real estate and fashion, to name just a few who have evolved for the new consumer wellness market.

Selfcare is finally realised as a necessity rather than a luxury and this creates more conscious choices in looking after ones self with regular massage, meditation, yoga and fitness being priorities to maintain health and wellness. More people are opting for plant based diets, organic and vegan products, off the grid homes and fashion that offers an ethical ethos. The music sector is also booming off the back of the wellness sector with new music-for-wellbeing concepts and platforms seeing acceleration in growth for the music industry.

Music for Wellness:

Music is one of the biggest growth trends, more people are tuning in to music to help with de-stressing, better sleep, yoga, working out and meditation, just to name a few reasons we download a play list. The music industry is responding to the demand of  the wellness ears with the big streaming music sites (Spotify, Amazon, Apple, etc.) investing in music- for-wellbeing and now have “wellness” as a new listening channel.

While there’s been a ‘new age’ music category supporting the wellness industry for a few decades, providing soft, relaxing tunes for easy listening, massage, meditation and yoga, the horizons and choice for what is now labeled ‘wellness music’ has accelerated in the past two years.

Healing Through Music:

Sound healing is a real thing, it’s an ancient meditative practice that uses different musical instruments to create healing vibrations around and through the body.  A unique experience that varies in each of us, often surrounded by others who are listening to the same sounds yet everyone having their own form of healing. It seems only logical that if Spotify can use algorithms to create wellness playlists (from existing music) that reflect your musical tastes, then tapping to our healing needs is the next step in sound healing.

Musicians from other genres are now entering the wellness music realm, exploring their creativity with music for healing. Meditation apps are becoming record labels in their own right, seeing technology creating music for us by providing healing sounds, without choruses or verses.

‘Generative’ sounds describe music that is ever-different and changing, and it’s created by a system providing a soundscape worked on your body biometrics. Imagine music based on our personal physical or behavioural characteristics used to digitally identify us creating a combination of healing sounds for us?

Futuristic Wellness Has Arrived:

While it sounds farfetched to have personalised generated sound, think about what happens to us when we hear a special song or a piece of music, when our memories, feeling and emotions are immediately triggered, transported to a time a place and moment, so why can’t music also be created for our health and wellness?

We know that we can literally feel the beat of music, the vibrations resinating through us and that makes us relax, want to dance, go into a trance or tap along in unison with others and yet it’s just a beat, I personally can’t wait for a playlist to be created for me (Time to by a wearable device if you want your  personal play list created).

Help From Your Wearable Devices: 

Mubert, Lucid, Wavepaths, and Endel are leaders in generative wellness sound technologies and it works by using a wearable device to extract information about your heart rate, movement, the weather, your location, and circadian data. It then takes all the information to create a unique-to-you, neuroscience-based soundscape to help you focus , relax, exercise or sleep. Endel’s soundscapes are grounded in the concept of a person being in their “flow state” of optimal immersion in what we are doing. The use of brain wave measurement technology and SleepScore Labs testing to validate that their sound interventions actually work.

It’s the opposite of catchy tunes, soundscapes “music” but rather Endel labels it as an ambient “sound blanket” that’s similar to adding a biological function to our body, it’s as unconscious as breathing.

Sounds To The Beat of Your Heart.

With the data on your body, it will understand an elevation in heart rate but if you’re not moving, soundscapes will release vibes to calm you down that work in sync with your heartbeat; Likewise if your energy drops when it shouldn’t, soundscape healing will give you a boost. This is sound healing of the future which is fast becoming the now. Security of data from devices such as health trackers on your physical and mental state, privacy issues will difficult but the policies on companies not sharing users data is crucial to its success which is to be expected.

I expect to hear some ancient sounds used for healing, as they have been used for traditional cultural ceremonies to create excitement, trances, healing and calming vibes with beating drums chanting and other instrumental sounds, integrated into the ‘soundscapes’ or ‘sound blanket’, (the names alone sound soothing) .

The future of wellness music is inspiring, knowing all we have to do is wear a tracking device to compile our biometric data and download an app to help us with our physical, emotional and mental health and wellness.

Like everything we do there are always consequences and while some are into the wearable devices, the data they provide but some of us are happy with no wearable-devices and prefer the sounds on nature for improved wellness.

‘there’s no wifi in the forest but you will find a better connection’ 

Take advantage of the simple way music can improve your wellbeing

Katrina Thorpe – Owner ikatan Spa Noosa