Seeking serenity through soothing sounds

Serenity, balance, calm: All are sensible but often-challenging intentions during our demanding and stressful days.

Yoga instructor Diane Rosenstein sees sound therapy as an inner-peace shortcut of sorts. She leads hourlong Yin yoga classes at several Henderson-area EOS fitness centers, and over the past year, she added a 25-minute sound bath to the end of her sessions.

“It does the heavy lifting for people who have a difficult time relaxing,” she said of the centuries-old wellness practice. “If it’s hard to let go, you just listen.” Sounds and vibrations from her crystal bowls and chimes reach participants lying flat on mats they have just used to complete their yoga practice.

Rosenstein taps, stirs, shakes and shifts five “singing” crystal vessels, metal Tibetan bowls, chimes, bells and a rainstick. Tones and vibrations work their way around the room alone or sometimes complement musical recordings Rosenstein plays. Feedback has been positive.

“This has given me such relief and helped me find a place of personal peace and calm,” Tammie Stoker said after one of Rosenstein’s recent classes. “Life gets heavy sometimes; the yoga and sound bath have helped me through some really difficult days.”

Charmaine Demercado added, “This has given me the opportunity to just slow down and find a quiet, calm place.” The vibrations “radiate through me and calm me down. Then it’s like a Zen state I’m in.”

“I always feel better — physically, mentally and emotionally — when I leave,” Stoker said. “It’s been a blessing in my life.”

Stoker and Demercado said yoga sessions and sound baths work in tandem for them. Their bodies feel stretched, strengthened and relaxed after yoga, and then sound therapy brings them serenity.

“Anything to help people realize they don’t have to live with stress,” Rosenstein said of what partially motivated her to add the sound bath element. “I know some people say, ‘There’s nothing I can do about my stress,’ but you can learn to reduce your stress. Once you learn to relax, you want more and more of it.”

The greater an investment someone initially makes to practice relaxation, she said, “the easier it is for you to come into a zone of relaxation. Your body and mind start to relax more easily.”

‘Feeling the vibrations’

Anne Weisman, professor and director of the Well-Being and Integrative Medicine program at UNLV’s Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, said self-regulating tools that lead to relaxation are modern necessities for balancing our nervous systems. She’s a supporter of sound therapy and a believer in free therapies such as relaxation breathing techniques, dancing and taking walks in neighborhoods and nature.

“Vibrations and sound have power that help bring balance to the nervous system,” Weisman said about sound baths. “When we’re feeling the vibrations, they’re having a calming effect on us.”

When people are constantly on the go, consumed by what’s on their computer and phone screens and facing deadlines to get things done quickly, their sympathetic nervous systems have “fight or flight” responses. Weisman said it’s unhealthy for the body and mind to spend too much time in that mode, comparing it to drivers having their foot on the gas for too long and risking a crash.

“Being alive in 2026 means we are flooded with sensory overload,” Weisman said. “There’s so much input coming at us.” That causes stress, and too much of that can keep our sympathetic nervous system in an overactive state.

Learning to relax helps calm our minds and bodies and supports the parasympathetic nervous system, which Weisman likens to “a parachute coming down to help our body.” An example of the parasympathetic response is the palpable slow down of heart rates after initial increases from sudden scares or shocks.

When the body and mind relax and people no longer feel on edge, the parasympathetic system can work more efficiently on supporting important body functions like adequate rest and proper digestion.

Wellness and the need to find balance continue to be common discussion topics, and that’s a good thing to Weisman.

“I really feel at this time, we’re recognizing the fullness of being human and the importance of relaxation to help our bodies,” she said. “Relaxation and rest are how our bodies repair. We’re not machines. We need relaxation, rest and sleep, and community.”

‘Chance to recalibrate’

Tricia Trimble opened her northwest Las Vegas wellness studio in February with those human needs in mind. She leads an hourlong session titled “Luxury Sound Bath” ($35) at Sacred Space. Another class, “Sound Bath, Breathwork and Bliss” ($22), is guided by a colleague of hers who has been teaching breathing techniques for 30 years.

On a Sunday night in late July, regulars, first-timers and a pair of Las Vegas visitors from San Francisco and Hong Kong wore chamomile or fragrance-free eye masks as the Luxury Sound Bath began. Participants rested under linen blankets on small mattresses covered with cotton sheets. Dozens of faux candles were lit behind musical instruments soon to be used by Trimble and her partner to bathe participants in sounds and vibrations as they rested.

“We’ll be over and around you for the full 360-degree sound effect,” Trimble explained. Because so much of the human body is water (about 60 percent), Trimble said the vibrations of the singing bowls, gongs, chimes and other musical instruments are felt as energy by our bodies, not just heard.

As she stepped between two rows of comfy beds harboring eight participants, she played instruments that mimicked the sounds of waves, thunderstorms and rain. Notes from a gong, chimes and singing bowls also were heard and felt. A couple of participants gave away their sleepy serenity with soft snores.

Following the relaxation, rest and vibrations of Trimble’s sound bath, she shared cups of organic peppermint tea and sat down to talk with everyone who had shown up. As they left, she wished them a good night’s sleep.

“We are in fight or flight quite often,” Trimble said. “We can’t get much done when our sympathetic nervous system is hijacked by stress. Sound baths put us into the parasympathetic mode. They give us a chance to recalibrate.” That can have positive effects on mood, sleep, creativity and productivity, she’s been told by some of her clients.