How our brain processes sound during high stress and how we can use sound to calm ourselves down.
Have you ever seen a movie, show or video game where they show a panic or fight or flight situation through the character’s eyes? Or maybe you’ve been a such a situation yourself. At first everything is so loud. You can hear everything. You hear people talking in a distance, you can hear traffic and birds and babies crying all at the same time. You may hear a crash or footsteps. Possible fighting or gun violence. You can hear everything as though it’s right next to you. Then the panic is over, the sounds seem to be quieter or gone all together and what you’re left with is the sound of your own breathing and your heartbeat seems to be coming from your inside your head.
Hollywood has done a fabulous job portraying an internal reaction because that is VERY realistic interpretation of the body’s amazing way it processes noise and sound in a high stress situation. In fight or flight, your heart rate increases, your oxygen flow increases to your major muscles, your pain receptors weaken and perception drops, and your hearing sharpens. This all happens so that we can have the quickest and most accurate reaction to a perceived threat so that we can get ourselves to safety.
In the midst of stress, blood not only flows to your major muscles but also to your eardrum, specifically the middle ear where there are three tiny bones that push sound to a fluid filled chamber called the cochlea. The cochlea in lined with tiny little hairs that bend and vibrate when sound waves hit them. These hairs convert the sound waves into an electrical signal.
During the process these little hairs swell with the blood to better process sound, which causes those far off noises, like babies crying and cars honking, to sound closer. This is also the reason that once the stress is over, the sound of your heartbeat seems to be coming from inside your head. It the sound of the pulsating blood flow in those little hairs.
Though the auditory fight or flight response is helpful in times of high stress, this reaction can be engaged with ongoing stress and anxiety, and can negatively impact the health of our ears as time goes on. So, what do we do when we need to reduce stress and how can we do it using our sense of hearing?
The following tips are great ways to use auditory sensory to reduce stress:
1) Listen for the quietest sounds you can hear such as the humming of a furnace, someone breathing, the tick of clock or the buzz of the electricty. Concentrate on each sound and count how many “silent” sounds you hear.
2) Play binaural beats. This type of music is specifically designed to calm people. It is best to use listen through headphones, while laying down. YouTube offers a wide selection of binaural beats for free.
3) Listen to classical music. Classical music has been proven by multiple studies to calm down anxiety, reduce heart rate, lower cortisol levels and increase blood flow to the brain.
4) Listen to a crackling fire. Not only does the sight of a fire trigger an entrancing effect but so does the sound of the crackling. Even listening to a recording of a crackling fire has an extremely calming effect on nerves.
5) Listen to a story being read aloud. There are plenty of apps for audible stories but there are also apps specifically designed to use talking and story telling as an anxiety reducing tool.
6) White noise sounds are a great way to reduce stress. You can find white noise recordings on YouTube or you can just simply run a fan or vacuum for the real auditory sensation
So what ways are you wanting to try or what has worked for you in the past to use our sense of hearing to help calm you and relieve stress and anxiety?How our brain processes stress and how we can use sound to calm ourselves down.
Have you ever seen a movie, show or video game where they show a panic or fight or flight situation through the character’s eyes? Or maybe you’ve been a such a situation yourself. At first everything is so loud. You can hear everything. You hear people talking in a distance, you can hear traffic and birds and babies crying all at the same time. You may hear a crash or footsteps. Possible fighting or gun violence. You can hear everything as though it’s right next to you. Then the panic is over, the sounds seem to be quieter or gone all together and what you’re left with is the sound of your own breathing and your heartbeat seems to be coming from your inside your head.
Hollywood has done a fabulous job portraying an internal reaction because that is VERY realistic interpretation of the body’s amazing way it processes noise and sound in a high stress situation. In fight or flight, your heart rate increases, your oxygen flow increases to your major muscles, your pain receptors weaken and perception drops, and your hearing sharpens. This all happens so that we can have the quickest and most accurate reaction to a perceived threat so that we can get ourselves to safety.
In the midst of stress, blood not only flows to your major muscles but also to your eardrum, specifically the middle ear where there are three tiny bones that push sound to a fluid filled chamber called the cochlea. The cochlea in lined with tiny little hairs that bend and vibrate when sound waves hit them. These hairs convert the sound waves into an electrical signal.
During the process these little hairs swell with the blood to better process sound, which causes those far off noises, like babies crying and cars honking, to sound closer. This is also the reason that once the stress is over, the sound of your heartbeat seems to be coming from inside your head. It the sound of the pulsating blood flow in those little hairs.
Though the auditory fight or flight response is helpful in times of high stress, this reaction can be engaged with ongoing stress and anxiety, and can negatively impact the health of our ears as time goes on. So, what do we do when we need to reduce stress and how can we do it using our sense of hearing?
The following tips are great ways to use auditory sensory to reduce stress:
1) Listen for the quietest sounds you can hear such as the humming of a furnace, someone breathing, the tick of clock or the buzz of the electricty. Concentrate on each sound and count how many “silent” sounds you hear.
2) Play binaural beats. This type of music is specifically designed to calm people. It is best to use listen through headphones, while laying down. YouTube offers a wide selection of binaural beats for free.
3) Listen to classical music. Classical music has been proven by multiple studies to calm down anxiety, reduce heart rate, lower cortisol levels and increase blood flow to the brain.
4) Listen to a crackling fire. Not only does the sight of a fire trigger an entrancing effect but so does the sound of the crackling. Even listening to a recording of a crackling fire has an extremely calming effect on nerves.
5) Listen to a story being read aloud. There are plenty of apps for audible stories but there are also apps specifically designed to use talking and story telling as an anxiety reducing tool.
6) White noise sounds are a great way to reduce stress. You can find white noise recordings on YouTube or you can just simply run a fan or vacuum for the real auditory sensation
So what ways are you wanting to try or what has worked for you in the past to use our sense of hearing to help calm you and relieve stress and anxiety?