People have always been lured to Goa in search of something more than just beautiful beaches – from full moon parties, people slowly drifted towards yoga practices, silence retreats, and more recently towards sound healing centers located amid the hills of Anjuna, Assagao, and Mandrem. If you have surfed any of the retreat centers in Goa recently, then you must have seen how frequently the term “sound healing” comes along with yoga and meditation centers. But what is really going on in those centers?
What Sound Healing Actually Is?
Sound healing entails the use of resonant instruments, including Himalayan and crystal singing bowls, gongs, tuning forks, chimes, and vocal sounds, by which the body and mind attain an extremely relaxed state. This practice isn’t novel but has existed for millennia in various societies from Tibet to Greece. What has become novel is the venue where such treatment is offered. Due to its tranquil rhythm, pleasant weather, and the sound therapists, Goa has become the most popular destination in India for sound healing therapy.
While a spa treatment involves touch and manipulation, sound healing doesn’t require anything but listening. No specific postures or instructions need to be followed and all one has to do is to lie back comfortably.
What Happens in a Typical Session
If this is your first time undergoing a sound healing in Goa, here is what generally happens:
1. Settling in
Sessions start with some kind of grounding practice, which is a couple of deep breaths and sometimes intention-setting. You’ll be lying on the floor, possibly with a bolster or blanket, in a dark room or in an open-air shala with crickets or sea noise around you.
2. The sound journey
The therapist will then start playing various instruments – starting with something like a deep bowl or gong, and moving into a layering of frequencies through a combination of bowls, chimes, and other sounds, maybe even singing or vocal tones. This lasts about 45 minutes to an hour.
3. The in-between state
People generally say that they enter some sort of consciousness that’s not quite awake and not quite asleep, something similar to what happens in the middle of dreaming. Your nervous system goes from the “fight or flight” mode to relaxation. Some people cry, some doze off, some experience tingling or emotional releases.
4. Gentle return
The process ends gradually; typically, soft sounds provide time to let the body come back to full awareness before sitting up. Typically, facilitators allow a bit of silent time at the end of the practice and then ask participants for their feedback.
Why People Are Physically Traveling for This
Maybe the question you want to ask is: “can’t I just listen to a YouTube sound bath”? Yes, in theory you could, but here are the reasons why people still come all the way to Goa:
- The environment already gets you halfway through. The ocean air, red earth of the region, and the slower pace of life in Goa bring down the general stress levels even before the practice starts.
- There’s nothing like live sound. Bowls and gongs produce physical vibrations that travel throughout the body; it’s not something that speakers could replicate.
- It’s hardly ever a single experience. When people go to sound healing in Goa, it’s not a single event; they usually combine it with yoga practice, pranayama, and a few days without technology.
- Community makes a difference. The community aspect of the Goan wellness circuff means that you will be surrounded by people in the same boat as you, something that is healing in and of itself.
Healing Retreats in Goa: More Than Just One Session
Despite individual sound baths being very well-received, most experienced travelers prefer the comprehensive healing retreats that offer sound baths along with other techniques such as yoga and Ayurveda in Goa. This is because most of the retreats take a multi-faceted approach, where there is a focus on releasing physical tension through movement, relaxing the mind through meditation, and working on emotions through sound healing.
For example, in a week-long retreat, one can have yoga in the morning, nature trek or an Ayurveda consultation in the afternoon, and a sound bath in the evening.
Curious to Go Deeper? Consider a Sound Healing Teacher Training
And for those whose takeaway from the experience is, “I wish I could do this for other people,” Goa also offers some of the finest sound healing teacher trainings in the country. Sound healing teacher trainings usually consist of learning about sound vibration, learning how to work with singing bowls, gongs, and tuning forks, as well as creating space for others when they are releasing emotions – all that will allow you to organize your own sound baths as a professional or alongside your yoga practice.
If you’ve been thinking about this, at Yoga Nidra Retreat we conduct our own Sound Healing Teacher Training and retreats in Goa – specifically tailored for beginners as well as already practicing yoga teachers willing to include sound healing into their repertoire.
Final Thoughts
Whether you are seeking just one healing sound bath experience or an entire weeklong retreat, Goa has an offering few places can claim — an environment in which everything, from the practice itself to the people involved and even the rhythm of life, works in harmony with each other rather than against one another.
