Walk into a group sound meditation and you may notice something beyond the singing bowls, gongs, and other instruments.
There is also the experience of being with other people.
Participants often describe sound baths as relaxing, grounding, emotionally meaningful, or even connective. Those personal experiences matter. Anecdotal evidence can tell us a great deal about what people notice and value—and it can point researchers toward questions worth studying.
But personal experience and scientific evidence answer different questions.
If someone leaves a sound bath feeling calmer and more connected to the people around them, that experience is real. Researchers then ask the next question: What might have contributed to that feeling, and do similar effects appear when they are studied systematically?
That is where things get interesting.
Research directly examining singing bowls and sound meditation suggests potential benefits for relaxation, anxiety, mood, and physiological responses.¹⁻⁴ Meanwhile, studies of related group practices—including chanting, singing, and shared meditation—suggest that doing contemplative activities with other people may sometimes strengthen feelings of connection and closeness.⁵⁻⁷
The science is promising, although there are still plenty of unanswered questions. And despite what you may have read elsewhere on the wellness web, we don’t need to turn every interesting study into a sweeping biological claim to appreciate what the research has to say.
What Are the Emotional Benefits of Group Sound Healing?
Research suggests that sound meditation may support short-term relaxation, reduced anxiety, and changes in emotional experience.¹⁻⁴ The evidence is encouraging, although researchers are still working to understand which parts of the experience contribute to these effects.
One of the stronger studies comes from a 2023 randomized controlled trial involving 50 adults selected for high state anxiety. Participants received either a Tibetan singing-bowl session, progressive muscle relaxation, or no intervention while waiting.
Both active interventions reduced self-reported anxiety compared with the waiting-list condition. The singing-bowl group also showed changes in heart rate variability (HRV) and EEG activity.¹
Put simply, the study found evidence of an acute relaxation response associated with a single singing-bowl session.
And it isn’t the only study pointing in that direction.
A 2025 systematic review looked at 14 quantitative studies of Tibetan singing-bowl interventions.² Across those studies, researchers found promising results involving:
- Anxiety and depressive symptoms
- Psychological well-being and quality of life
- Heart rate and heart rate variability
- EEG activity
There also an important distinction here—and it’s not one we want to overlook.
The studies differed substantially in their methods, populations, and interventions. Those differences prevented the researchers from combining the results into a meta-analysis. The authors concluded that the findings are promising while also calling for more rigorous controlled trials.²
The takeaway: The evidence does not require an all-or-nothing interpretation. We don’t have to choose between “sound healing is scientifically proven” and “there’s no evidence at all.” The current research sits somewhere much more interesting in between and has begun to paint a promising picture for sound practitioners.
Sound Meditation May Involve More Than Relaxation
Let’s reconsider the idea that a “successful” sound meditation should make everyone blissfully calm.
As we know, our emotions rarely work that neatly.
An observational study involving 62 participants in a multi-instrument sound-healing environment found associations between improvements in spiritual well-being and reductions in tension and depressed mood.³ Because the study didn’t have a randomized control group, it can’t tell us whether sound itself caused those changes.
Meanwhile, a small qualitative study involving Tibetan bowls and a monochord found that participants described not only relaxation but also emotions, memories, imagery, and physical sensations during their sessions.⁴
That study included only six participants from a specific clinical population, so we should be careful about applying its findings broadly. Still, it raises an important point for both practitioners and participants:
Sound meditation does not necessarily produce one predictable emotional state.
A person may feel deeply relaxed. Another may notice emotions that were already present. Someone else may simply enjoy lying quietly and listening.
For sound healing practitioners, leaving room for those differences may be more responsible than telling participants how they are supposed to feel.
Why Might Practicing Sound Meditation with Other People Matter?
The shared setting may be one meaningful part of a group sound meditation, although researchers haven’t yet demonstrated that passive sound baths directly increase social bonding.
To understand why scientists are interested in this question, we can look at related practices.
One particularly useful example is group chanting.
A 2021 study involving 117 participants compared chanting with a control activity and examined both individual and group participation. After 10 minutes, chanting was associated with reduced stress and increased positive affect compared with the control activity.⁵
There was another intriguing result: people chanting together reported greater connection specifically toward the other members of their chanting group.⁵
That sounds quite relevant to group sound healing—but there is an important distinction.
Chanting is an active, coordinated activity. Participants create the sound themselves and may coordinate their voices, breathing, and timing. During a typical sound bath meditation, participants primarily listen.
So we can’t simply take the results from chanting research, swap the word “chanting” for “sound bath,” and call it science.
Still, the research gives us a valuable clue: sharing a contemplative sound experience with other people may matter.
The Group May Be Part of the Experience
Another chanting experiment makes this idea even more interesting.
Researchers assigned 34 participants to either vocal or silent group repetition of “om.” Both groups experienced significant reductions in cortisol and self-reported anxiety. Cortisol reductions were similar between the groups, although anxiety decreased more following vocal chanting.⁶
That means vocal sound alone probably does not explain everything researchers observed.
Other parts of the experience could matter, including:
- Focused attention
- Breathing
- Meditation
- Expectations
- The surrounding environment
- Practicing alongside other people
Research on shared meditation provides another clue.
In a 2025 study, participants completed a brief “Just-Like-Me” meditation with another person. Shared meditation increased interpersonal closeness. In the in-person experiment, researchers also found greater resource allocation toward meditation partners after shared rather than solitary meditation. They observed synchronized heart rates and smiling during the shared practice as well.⁷
Again, this was not a sound bath study. Participants looked at one another and contemplated their shared humanity, making it quite different from lying quietly beside other participants during a sound meditation.
But the broader point is important here:
A contemplative practice does not necessarily happen in a social vacuum. Who we practice with—and the experience of doing something together—may influence how the experience feels.
That is particularly poignant for sound healing practitioners.
When creating a group session, the instruments may be only one part of the participant’s experience. The room, pacing, sense of welcome, other participants, expectations, and opportunity to simply be present together could all contribute.
Sound, Synchrony, and Connection: What Does the Research Really Tell Us?
This is where some conversations can get a little carried away.
Terms such as “entrainment,” “brainwave synchronization,” and “nervous system synchronization” sound scientific—and they describe real areas of research. But they’re sometimes used online as though they all describe the same phenomenon.
They don’t.
Scientists may be studying several very different things:
- Neural responses to sound: Brain activity within one person may correspond to rhythmic features of an auditory stimulus.
- Physiological changes within a person: Heart rate, HRV, breathing, EEG activity, or arousal may change during listening or meditation.
- Interpersonal physiological synchrony: Physiological patterns between two or more people may become temporarily coordinated.
Keeping these concepts separate helps prevent an interesting finding from turning into a much bigger claim than the research supports. What’s more, there are valuable lessons for us in the actual science that would otherwise be lost without nuance.
Can People’s Bodies Become Synchronized?
Under certain circumstances, aspects of physiology can become coordinated between people.
A 2020 study examined pairs of participants vocalizing together. Sustained synchronized vocalizations lasting longer than 10 seconds produced greater coupling in aspects of HRV than shorter vocalizations or baseline conditions. Some synchronization remained even after researchers accounted for respiration.⁸
That sounds like a fascinating biological explanation for social connection—until we look at the next finding.
Greater physiological synchronization did not clearly correspond to a greater subjective feeling of togetherness.⁸
That distinction matters.
Two people’s physiological patterns becoming temporarily coordinated doesn’t automatically mean they feel emotionally closer.
Research on singing bowls offers a similar reason for careful language. A small exploratory EEG study found increased frontal brain activity corresponding to a prominent acoustic beat within a singing-bowl recording, consistent with a possible frequency-following response.²
That finding concerned what happened within individual listeners.
It did not demonstrate that singing bowls caused everyone’s brainwaves in a group to synchronize with one another.
Interesting science becomes less useful—not more useful—when we stretch it beyond what researchers actually measured.
For practitioners, there’s no need to make those leaps. The evidence we do have is compelling enough, and we should look forward to future studies.
What About Oxytocin and Group Sound Healing?
Oxytocin may be involved in some social responses to music, but current research does not show that sound baths simply “release oxytocin” or that oxytocin explains why people may feel connected during them.
Oxytocin is often called the “bonding hormone” online. That nickname is convenient, but our biology is considerably more complicated.
A 2022 study involving 71 young adult choir members compared singing with speaking and doing those activities together versus alone.⁹
Oxytocin didn’t simply shoot upward after people sang together.
Salivary oxytocin decreased across the experimental conditions but decreased less following singing than speaking. After baseline adjustment, levels were higher after singing together than speaking together. Singing together was also associated with more favorable changes in affect and social connection.⁹
A 2026 systematic review provides even more perspective. Researchers examined 20 studies involving 877 participants across singing, instrumental music, music listening, and music therapy.¹⁰
Their findings suggest that music-related oxytocin responses depend heavily on context. Psychological improvements didn’t consistently correspond with changes in peripheral oxytocin.¹⁰
That gives us a much more accurate—and more compelling—picture than saying, “sound releases the bonding hormone.”
Researchers are continuing to investigate relationships among music, social behavior, coordinated activity, emotion, and oxytocin systems.¹⁰,¹¹ But oxytocin remains a possible piece of a much larger puzzle rather than a proven mechanism for sound baths. As sound practitioners, we should keep this context in mind and focus on the holistic experience of a group meditation.
The Group Sound Healing Experience Is Probably More Than Sound Alone
One of the most useful lessons from this research is that we may be asking the wrong question when we try to identify the one thing responsible for the benefits people report after group sound meditation.
There may not be one thing.
Instead, a session brings together several experiences at once:
- Sound: sustained and rhythmic auditory stimulation
- Attention: time spent focusing away from ordinary distractions
- Rest: an opportunity to be physically still
- Contemplation: participation in a structured meditative experience
- Environment: lighting, comfort, pacing, and other aspects of the setting
- Social context: participating alongside other people
- Individual factors: expectations, preferences, previous experiences, and emotional state
Research directly examining sound meditation provides some support for relaxation, reduced anxiety, and emotional effects.¹⁻⁴ Meanwhile, adjacent research suggests that shared contemplative and rhythmic practices can sometimes contribute to feelings of connection.⁵⁻⁸
What scientists have not yet mapped out is precisely how all of these ingredients interact during a passive group sound bath.
And that uncertainty isn’t a weakness.
It’s simply where the research stands today, and reminds us that the whole experience—and all of its varying components—ought to be taken into consideration with nuance.
Why Should Sound Healing Practitioners Care About This Research?
Practitioners often hear firsthand what participants experience after a session.
Someone may say they felt deeply relaxed. Another person may describe an emotional release. Someone else may say that sharing the room with others made them feel less alone.
All of these accounts have value.
Anecdotal experience can help us understand what people perceive and can inspire questions worth studying. What it can’t do by itself is establish why an experience occurred or whether the same effect can be expected in other people.
That’s where academic research comes in.
Rather than replacing participants’ lived experiences, research gives practitioners another lens through which to understand them.
It also encourages more thoughtful language.
Instead of:
“The sound synchronizes everyone’s nervous systems and releases oxytocin.”
An evidence-aligned explanation might be:
“Research suggests sound meditation may support relaxation and emotional well-being. Studies of related group practices also suggest that shared contemplative experiences can sometimes support social connection, although researchers are still investigating how these effects occur during sound baths.”
The second explanation may sound less dramatic.
It’s also far more accurate and far less reductive.
And for a practitioner asking people to trust them with a personal wellness experience, credibility matters more than a dramatic claim.
What Are the Group Sound Healing Benefits for Emotional Well-Being?
The current research gives us a promising but still developing picture.
Studies of singing bowls and sound meditation suggest potential benefits for relaxation, anxiety, mood, and physiological responses associated with relaxation.¹⁻⁴ Research involving group chanting, singing, and shared meditation suggests that practicing contemplative or rhythmic activities with others may support feelings of connection under certain conditions.⁵⁻⁷
Perhaps the more mindful way to think about a group sound meditation is as a whole experience rather than a single stimulus.
There is sound, certainly. But there is also rest, attention, environment, expectation, contemplation, and the quiet experience of being in a room with other people.
Researchers are beginning to help us understand these pieces, and there’s still plenty left to learn.
If you’re interested in exploring how sound meditation could become part of your personal wellness practice, you can schedule a consultation with Terry at The Art of Sound Healing. We can discuss the experience, your goals, and whether an individual or group sound practice may be a good fit for you.
References
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- Lin FW, Yang YH, Wang JY. Effects of Tibetan singing bowl intervention on psychological and physiological health in adults: a systematic review. Healthcare (Basel). 2025;13(16):2002. doi:10.3390/healthcare13162002.
- Goldsby TL, Goldsby ME, McWalters M, Mills PJ. Sound healing: mood, emotional, and spiritual well-being interrelationships. Religions. 2022;13(2):123. doi:10.3390/rel13020123.
- Gal H, Elefant C. A qualitative pilot study examining Tibetan bowls and monochord sound meditation with adults with mental health conditions and intellectual disabilities. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy. Published online 2024. doi:10.56883/aijmt.2024.320.
- Simpson FM, Perry G, Thompson WF. Assessing vocal chanting as an online psychosocial intervention. Front Psychol. 2021;12:647632. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647632.
- Perry G, Polito V, Thompson WF. Exploring the physiological and psychological effects of group chanting in Australia: reduced stress, cortisol and enhanced social connection. J Relig Health. 2024;63:4793-4815. doi:10.1007/s10943-023-01967-5.
- Ludwig VU, Prieur L, Rennie SM, et al. Synchronous smiles and hearts: dyadic meditations enhance closeness and prosocial behavior in virtual and in-person settings. Mindfulness. 2025;16:1719-1744. doi:10.1007/s12671-025-02588-7.
- Ruiz-Blais S, Orini M, Chew E. Heart rate variability synchronizes when non-experts vocalize together. Front Physiol. 2020;11:762. doi:10.3389/fphys.2020.00762.
- Bowling DL, Gahr J, Graf Ancochea P, et al. Endogenous oxytocin, cortisol, and testosterone in response to group singing. Horm Behav. 2022;139:105105. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2021.105105.
- Chu TH, Tsai CG. Music’s context-dependent influence on oxytocin, social bonding, and emotion regulation: a systematic review. Front Cognit. 2026;4:1678665. doi:10.3389/fcogn.2025.1678665.
- Harvey AR. Links between the neurobiology of oxytocin and human musicality. Front Hum Neurosci. 2020;14:350. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2020.00350.