We have received countless reports from our listeners of the ways our recordings have helped with various issues related to mental health. Thus, we were pleased when Dr. Anna Yusim, a Manhattan psychiatrist affiliated with Yale Medical School, offered to conduct a pilot study utilizing Sacred Acoustics' recordings for patients in her clinical practice.
She had read scientific studies showing that binaural beats can reduce anxiety, improve working memory, and reduce chronic pain. These studies, taken alongside the breakthroughs shared by our listeners, made Anna curious about Sacred Acoustics' NeuralHelix recordings and their potential to help her patients. After trying the recordings herself, Anna and I developed a protocol that she implemented for the study.
Using our Whole States series along with the longer versions of Whole Delta, Whole Theta and Whole Alpha, patients are given flexibility on how to incorporate the recordings into their daily routine. These volunteer subjects are directed to develop awareness of the inner observer while listening each day and to play the recordings while performing other activities such as study or reading.
Progress is measured quantitatively by filling out the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, a standard psychiatric survey for determining levels of anxiety, at various intervals. Anna was initially impressed when some of her patients began to share rather immediate beneficial effects and even more impressed when a particularly challenged patient, who previously had not responded to other therapies, began to turn around.
Over time, Anna noticed that adding Sacred Acoustics to her usual treatment regimen of psychotherapy and, when medically indicated, psychopharmacology, seemed to increase the rate at which patients were making powerful and positive life changes.
Anna and I recently reviewed the preliminary data while presenting together in Camden, Maine at the event, Becoming More Whole, sponsored by Fox Hill Real Estate. During the panel I moderated with Dr. Yusim and Dr. Eben Alexander, we discussed the benefits of addressing addiction from a spiritual perspective along with a medical approach.
As Anna discusses in her book, Fulfilled: How the Science of Spirituality Can Help You Live a Happier, More Meaningful Life, any approach to mental health is inherently dependent on spiritual health and wholeness. Addiction is a reflection of a need to fill a spiritual hole which can never be filled with material things, including substances, food, power, work, sex and more.
Sacred Acoustics recordings help people get more in touch with their spiritual essence, allowing for greater understanding of problems and anxieties from a broader perspective. Finding peace within our inner world, often serves to bring balance in the outer world.
Anna plans to publish results of the pilot study in a medical journal and we will share that with our readers when it is completed in the coming months.
I noticed that you misspelled the title of her book. You just need to change “life” to “live” in the that title. Just in case you want to fix that. I enjoyed the article.
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Knowing how to maintain a core sense of presence and balance creates a foundation of strength to move from empathy to compassion, and at your finest, altruism, when you take action to help another without concern for yourself.
Karen Newell
Author
co-founder of Sacred Acoustics and co-author of Living in a Mindful Universe