A Massage for the Brain: Scottie Sound Bath Soothes the Stress of Everyday Life - Carnegie Mellon University

[Rob Biertempfel]

Until she arrived at Carnegie Mellon University, Joanna Lau had never heard of sound bath — a vibroacoustic therapy that uses quartz crystal singing bowls to induce deep relaxation.

Lau is a graduate assistant for music professor Monique Mead(opens in new window), the director of music entrepreneurship(opens in new window) at CMU. A world-class violinist, Mead operates a sound healing studio at the Awareness and Wellness Center in Shadyside and invited Lau to try a session.

Lau went into it with a sense of curiosity tinged with skepticism.

“I'm more of a science background person, and sound bath has the reputation of being kind of ‘woo-woo’ — you know, kind of out there,” said Lau, who studied neuroscience at Harvard University before coming to CMU to pursue a master’s degree in flute performance.

Lying on a yoga mat and tucked under a blanket, Lau closed her eyes and focused on the soft, rhythmic wah-wah sound made by the bowls. “It sort of washed out my mind,” she said. “It was very nice, very calming.” When the session ended after about an hour, Lau felt refreshed and stress-free.

Lau realized that maybe the wah-wah isn’t so woo-woo after all.

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In fall 2023, Lau was among a group of CMU students who founded Scottie Sound Bath(opens in new window) as part of Mead’s Collaborative Project for Music Entrepreneurship course.

“This has tremendous power, if you consider that stress is a significant contributing factor to every disease,” Mead said. “I’ve been so moved to see how much it’s helping people.”

Angela Lusk, project administrator for community health and well-being at CMU, helped Scottie Sound Bath secure $3,000 to purchase a set of singing bowls. Scottie Sound Bath quickly evolved from a class project to a recognized student organization. Through CMU’s Group X fitness classes(opens in new window), Scottie Sound Bath offers free weekly sessions to students, faculty and staff.

Class instructor Laura Buermann creates sound with a singing bowl.

A grant from the American College Health Foundation in fall 2024 enabled the group to purchase a second set of singing bowls for training and additional sound baths. The frequency of Group X sessions, which are held at the Cohon University Center and the Tepper Building, has grown from one to four per week. Many CMU colleges and departments, including Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Mellon College of Science and Housing and Residential Education, have gotten involved to promote wellness among their students and residents. Scottie Sound Bath also takes requests for private sound baths(opens in new window).

“It's nice to have something that’s part of our regular weekly programming at Group X where people can relax and recharge,” Lau said.

As dusk fell on a recent Friday night, restaurants and hangouts in Oakland began to buzz with folks eager to enjoy the weekend before the start of CMU’s finals week. Meanwhile, in Tepper’s Noll Fitness Studio, a group gathered to unwind and refocus in the serenity of a Scottie Sound Bath session.

After leaving their shoes at the door, a half-dozen participants reclined on yoga mats in a semicircle with their heads facing a cluster of six bowls in the center of the room. Three more bowls were stationed in a corner to provide a more immersive experience.

Using rubber mallets, two student practitioners played the bowls by striking them to make a soft ping and rubbing the rim to make a drone-like sound. Sounds from an ocean drum and chimes were mixed in intermittently. Scottie Sound Baths occasionally include performances on the flute, violin or harp, but this night was an exception — it was wall-to-wall wah-wah.

Buermann leads the sound bath in the Cohon University Center.

“The magic is not in the bowls,” Mead said. “The magic is in what our practitioners do with them. It’s like a massage for your brain.”

Singing bowls produce different frequencies and pulsations. In theory, the varying sounds will downshift the listeners’ brainwaves from a beta state (normal consciousness) to the theta (present during meditation and REM sleep) or delta (deep sleep) states.

“My goal is to make someone in the group fall asleep,” said Isabel Carulli, a Pitt medical student who became a Scottie Sound Bath student practitioner after taking Mead’s sound bath class. “I think having someone fall asleep is the best sign of success because you've gotten them so relaxed.”

When the session ended, the participants sat quietly for a few moments, processing what had just happened and enjoying the afterglow. “It felt like my whole body was vibrating,” said Jen Yarin, a first-time attendee.

Sound therapy has ancient roots. Egyptian high priests and Native American shamans used chanting and drumming in their spiritual and healing rituals. It’s also been prevalent for centuries among cultures in Asia and Africa.

Some research has indicated that sound therapy can reduce anxiety, improve mood, lower blood pressure and induce more restful sleep.

Buermann leads a sound bath at the Cohon University Center.

Last year, Lau partnered with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health on a survey of about 200 Scottie Sound Bath participants. Before the sound bath, 76% reported feeling stressed; afterward, only 22% felt stressed. Similarly, reports of feeling worn out dropped from 78% to 28%.

“We gave them space to write open-ended responses about their sound bath experiences, and some of those were really interesting,” Lau said. “A lot of people had some sort of physical bodily sensations. There was a lot of ‘I felt like the sounds were vibrating in my head.’ Some said it was like being in a dream. Most people said it was very calming, very grounding and it helped them feel more focused and ready to tackle their days.”

Carnegie Mellon was the first university to establish an in-house sound bath program, according to Mead. Other colleges now are tuning into the therapy, especially during May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. Duke University and the University of Cincinnati sponsor monthly programs. The City College of New York offers a Sound Yoga Therapy course. Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts have held sound baths to support mental health awareness.

“At first, I was surprised that CMU has gotten behind this so strongly because it's a research university and this is kind of coming from the woo-woo world,” Mead said with a laugh. “On the other hand, we are CMU and so we're going to take this crazy thing and do research on it. We're going to create an app for it. We're going to see if we can bend AI into it. This is really fertile ground.”