The Body Listens First: Sound and the Central Nervous System
Before it’s music. Before it’s memory. Sound is a shimmer in the air. A push against your skin. A tide in your spine. The body listens first. The mind just takes notes.
Sound enters through your ears, yes—but also your ribs, your jawbone, your sternum. The little bones in your middle ear are called hammer, anvil, and stirrup, which sounds mythic because it is. Each knock of vibration rolls through your cochlea, a spiraled cathedral of fluid and hair cells that pulse and translate pressure into lightning—zip!—straight to your brainstem.
But even that’s too clean a version. Because low-frequency sound doesn’t just knock politely on the door of your nervous system. It walks right in. It hums in your teeth. It slips under the muscles in your neck and loosens something ancient. It makes your blood vessels dilate. It slows your heart. It kisses your vagus nerve like a lover with a secret.
You’ve felt it—on subways, in temples, in your throat when you hum before sleep. This is not music for pleasure. This is music for repair.
But this is only one channel of perception. The body is a resonant chamber. Sound enters through bone conduction, shakes the vagal nerve and relaxes endothelial cells lining blood vessels, especially deep, sub-250Hz vibrations that shake the hips and settle into fascia. Low-frequency sound doesn’t need to be "heard" to be felt. That’s why you can experience it even with hearing loss. Your skeleton picks it up.
Sound as Medicine—Ancient, Animistic, Alive
Humans have used sound to shift states for millennia. Nāda yogis in India tuned their breath and bodies to tone. Sufi mystics whirled to droning chant. Aboriginal songlines mapped geography and memory in vibration. Inayat Khan called sound the divine effusion: “What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music.”
This isn’t poetic license. Modern science backs it up. The body is vibration. Every organ has a resonant frequency. The nervous system, too. And sound—especially low frequency sound—can entrain these systems toward harmony.
Animals know it. Horses melt to cello. Dogs sleep through thunderstorms but whimper at high-pitched beeps. Fish can be sedated with tone. Snake charmers sway serpents into softness. Sound enters where language can’t.
Ancient Chinese medicine viewed illness as a disruption of internal harmony. Sound—via bells, bowls, and vocal tone—was used to rebalance energy meridians. In ancient Greece, Pythagoras described musical intervals as a form of medicine. He believed dissonance in the body could be healed with harmonic ratios. The idea wasn’t aesthetic. It was structural.
The Healing Frequencies
Enter the evidence. Sound and vibration between 20 and 120 Hz can affect human physiology (Bartel & Mosabbir, 2021). These frequencies can reduce inflammation by stimulating endothelial nitric oxide production. They modulate pain through gate control theory and descending inhibition. They influence serotonin, dopamine, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).
Some of this is delivered through vibroacoustic therapy: beds or chairs embedded with transducers that deliver vibration directly into the body. The sensation is subtle but powerful. In people with fibromyalgia, these frequencies reduced pain. In Parkinson’s, they improved gait. In cerebral palsy, they eased spasticity.
FDA-Cleared Devices for Low-Frequency Therapy
What's backed by more than mysticism?
Osteoboost®: A wearable belt cleared by the FDA to treat osteopenia in postmenopausal women. It delivers low-frequency mechanical vibration to the lumbar spine and hips. In trials, it significantly reduced spinal bone loss. (osteoboost.com)
VibraCool®: Cleared under FDA 510(k), this external device combines vibration and cold therapy to relieve pain in joints and muscles. It’s portable and designed for at-home use.
Cala Trio™: FDA-cleared for essential tremor. This wrist-worn device delivers patterned nerve stimulation based on a patient's own tremor frequency, helping regulate motor signals.
Apollo® Wearable: designed to help your body manage stress by using gentle vibrations—a form of touch-based neuromodulation. Worn on the wrist, ankle, or clipped to clothing, the device delivers rhythmic pulses (called "vibes") that aim to influence the autonomic nervous system, helping users feel calmer, more focused, or more energized depending on the selected mode.
Next Wave PhysioAcoustic Chair: The FDA allows three claims: tension relief, increase of blood circulation and relief of pain. This device delivers therapeutic sound waves via embedded speakers.
Other tools, like the Sound Oasis Vibroacoustic Therapy System or BioAcoustic Mat, aren’t FDA-cleared but are widely used in clinics and spas.
These tools are more than gadgets. They offer relief—without pharmaceuticals, without invasive procedures. They speak the body’s original language.
From First Breath to Final Fade: Music as Medicine
Music-based interventions have made their way into neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), where carefully modulated heartbeat rhythms and lullabies have been shown to stabilize vital signs, improve oxygen saturation, improve brain function, enhance feeding behaviors and accelerate weight gain in preterm infants (Loewy et al., 2013; Haslbeck et al., 2020; Bauer-Rusek et al., 2024).
In dementia care, especially for Alzheimer’s patients, music is more than nostalgic comfort—it can reduce agitation, ease anxiety, and sometimes restore momentary orientation (Ridder et al., 2013; Ray & Mittelman, 2017). Personalized or rhythmic music can trigger engagement when nothing else reaches through. It is often the last language to fade.
Entrainment and Brainwaves
Entrainment refers to the process by which rhythmic external stimuli—like sound, light, or touch—synchronize with biological rhythms in the body.
In the context of sound and the nervous system, neural entrainment (or brainwave entrainment) means that the brain’s electrical activity begins to align with the frequency of an external rhythmic stimulus. This can happen through:
Binaural beats: When two slightly different tones are played in each ear, the brain perceives a third “phantom” tone. This perceived beat can entrain brainwaves toward theta, delta, alpha, or gamma frequencies, depending on the beat (Chaieb et al., 2015). Binaural beats are being studied for creativity, emotional regulation, even epilepsy. They can shift mood and cognitive states, improve cognitive flexibility (Hommel et al., 2016).
Delta (0.5–4 Hz): Deep sleep
Theta (4–8 Hz): Meditation, dreaminess, emotional processing
Alpha (8–12 Hz): Calm awareness
Beta (12–30 Hz): Task focus, stress
Gamma (30–100 Hz): Higher cognition, perception
Drumming or rhythmic music: Rhythmic patterns can entrain both heart rate and brain activity, shifting people into meditative or relaxed states—or into alert, focused ones.
Mechanical vibration: Low-frequency pulses, like those used in vibroacoustic therapy, can entrain muscular or autonomic rhythms, potentially calming spasms or reducing anxiety.
Entrainment suggests that the body is a resonant system, always listening. Rhythmic input can modulate internal rhythms—heart rate variability, respiratory cycles, even brainwave states—offering therapeutic avenues for stress, trauma, insomnia, tremor disorders, and more.
Researchers are also exploring isochronic tones and monaural beats—simpler formats that don't require headphones and may be more effective for certain populations. The field is wide open.
You don’t need a clinic to recalibrate. You need a place to lie down and a frequency to tune to. Try myNoise for sculpted frequencies, Brainaural for custom entrainment, or Online Tone Generator to play with beats yourself.
The nervous system wants rhythm. It evolved in it. Maternal heartbeat. Ocean tide. The thrum of wind in trees. Sound is ancestral. Returning to it isn’t regression—it’s remembering. To listen—truly listen—is not passive. It is physiological, spiritual, and perhaps even sacred. The body listens first. The mind follows.
Not ready to become a paid subscriber just yet? That’s okay. If something I wrote made you pause, feel, laugh, or learn—consider buying me a coffee. It’s a small gesture that helps keep the words flowing, the research deep, and the magic alive.
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician, licensed healthcare provider, or qualified expert before making any changes to your health regimen or interpreting the content herein. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated organization.
References
Bartel L, Mosabbir A. Possible Mechanisms for the Effects of Sound Vibration on Human Health. Healthcare (Basel). 2021;9(5):597. Published 2021 May 18. doi:10.3390/healthcare9050597
Chaieb L, Wilpert EC, Reber TP, Fell J. Auditory beat stimulation and its effects on cognition and mood States. Front Psychiatry. 2015;6:70. Published 2015 May 12. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00070
Hommel B, Sellaro R, Fischer R, Borg S, Colzato LS. High-Frequency Binaural Beats Increase Cognitive Flexibility: Evidence from Dual-Task Crosstalk. Front Psychol. 2016;7:1287. Published 2016 Aug 24. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01287
Khan HI. The Mysticism of Sound and Music. Boston: Shambhala; 1996.
Loewy J, Stewart K, Dassler AM, Telsey A, Homel P. The effects of music therapy on vital signs, feeding, and sleep in premature infants. Pediatrics. 2013;131(5):902-918. doi:10.1542/peds.2012-1367
Haslbeck FB, Jakab A, Held U, Bassler D, Bucher HU, Hagmann C. Creative music therapy to promote brain function and brain structure in preterm infants: A randomized controlled pilot study. Neuroimage Clin. 2020;25:102171. doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102171
Bauer-Rusek S, Shalit S, Yakobson D, et al. Music therapy and weight gain in preterm infants: Secondary analysis of the randomized controlled LongSTEP trial. J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr. 2024;78(1):113-121. doi:10.1002/jpn3.12061
Ridder HM, Stige B, Qvale LG, Gold C. Individual music therapy for agitation in dementia: an exploratory randomized controlled trial. Aging Ment Health. 2013;17(6):667-678. doi:10.1080/13607863.2013.790926
Ray KD, Mittelman MS. Music therapy: A nonpharmacological approach to the care of agitation and depressive symptoms for nursing home residents with dementia. Dementia (London). 2017;16(6):689-710. doi:10.1177/1471301215613779
This is all so fascinating. Thank you!
So glad to see this - what a wonderful piece. Thank you. And thank you for the recommendation!