Frequently Asked Questions on
How to Manage Stress

Stress management is an essential ingredient for health and happiness. Over 75% of all illnesses are associated with stress, which can be mental, emotional, or physical, and produce psychological and physiological symptoms. Stress can be destabilizing. Stress reduction and management can significantly impact cognitive and emotional stability and physical symptoms like muscle tension and pain. Stress management improves your life by helping you respond to challenges with strength and flexibility.

The Sound Life is a holistic approach to stress management based on applied psychophysiology and grounded in Christian values. We employ a two-fold approach: one-to-one coaching and apps for anytime, anywhere relaxation and meditation. Most coaching programs are mind-centered, focusing on actions to create change. We engage with the mind and the heart. The Sound Life combines the heart path to address the underlying desires and beliefs driving stress-related behavior and wellness coaching, the mind path, to problem-solve, set goals, and take action. The Sound Life is rooted in the understanding that relaxation is a learned behavior that significantly influences health and happiness. Therefore, daily relaxation is encouraged. We teach relaxation through app-driven sound meditation or neuromeditation. The apps provide easy access to rejuvenating and revitalizing meditation at home or on the go.

Meditation is a form of transcendent listening. It teaches you to listen beyond the restrictions of the active, alert mind, promoting access to the subconscious and unconscious minds. Deep states of meditation can bring heightened awareness and relationship to God. Meditation can connect you to the eternal wisdom of the heart, through which God speaks. Over time, meditation can teach you to be in the presence of your thoughts, going beyond judgment. Meditation is also one of the healthiest relaxation modalities, eliciting a relaxation response, a set of physiological measures that bring the body into homeostasis. With regular practice, meditation reduces stress, relieves anxiety, lowers heart rate, lowers blood pressure, improves sleep, boosts immunity, decreases inflammation, and so much more.

Sound meditation is music composed for relaxation that efficiently and effectively elicits the relaxation response. It involves sitting or lying comfortably, closing the eyes, breathing normally, and listening through a headset (noise-canceling headphones or earbuds work best). Sound meditation is a beautiful way to rest the mind, release tension, and soothe emotions.

Relaxation helps mitigate stress, and meditation helps clear the mind of repetitive thoughts. Meditation can help with anxiety by training the body to relax and release tension, quieting the mind, and improving dysregulated breathing. However, it is essential to understand that meditation does not replace psychological or medical interventions.

Regular meditation practice can improve sleep quality. The Sound Life includes versions of the meditation tracks produced to help you fall asleep. However, meditation is not a replacement for psychological or medical interventions.

Sound meditation is a specific term referring to eliciting a meditative state, primarily through timbral music. Sound healing is a general term that describes various therapeutic uses of sound. Outside of medical ultrasound, peer-reviewed research does not support the notion that particular sounds can change specific health conditions. However, soothing music can positively affect health outcomes. For example, scientific literature shows that soothing music can reduce pain perception. Sound meditation primarily uses timbral music to elicit a relaxing, meditative state. The benefits of relaxation and meditation are well-researched, with known outcomes that promote health and wellness.