Sound Therapy is an environmental health method
Environmental health is a new field of treatment which brings together mainstream and alternative health practices. It arose in response to a series of environmental diseases or illnesses that could not be addressed with conventional methods. One of the most well known but least understood is chronic fatigue. Initially thought to be “all in the mind,” it was eventually recognised as a genuine physical condition, but treatment remained elusive. Mostly affecting women in midlife, particularly those who had been high achievers or led very busy lives, it was attributed to stress or emotional pressures. But eventually, sufferers and health practitioners began to identify environmental causes.
A natural health approach looks in more detail than conventional medicine at things such as mineral deficiencies and toxic overload, recognising the body’s subtle need for about 60 trace minerals and many other nutrients to function effectively. Researchers in this field also started paying attention to the build-up of chemical toxins in the system and the overall health impact of such substances.
A long list of other diseases that are on the rise today, now reveal themselves as having a large environmental component. The list includes such conditions as arthritis, autism, diabetes, ADD, Asthma, tinnitus, adrenal fatigue, cancer and dementia.
Eve Hillary’s excellent book "Beyond the Toxic Harvest", documents her realisation that her chronic fatigue (and her son’s ADD) were caused by unwitting exposure to agricultural chemicals on their farm in New South Wales. They eventually recovered after years of careful treatment with diet and supplementation, enabling their bodies to detox from their chemical load.
Dr Sarah Lantz, author of "Chemical Free Kids", studied the accumulation of chemicals in human placentas and found an average of 250 chemicals in the several hundred placentas she studied.
No wonder learning difficulties are on the rise! While we can shrug off the fact that DDT is still found in the milk of polar bears as a sad but meaningless fact, Sarah Lantz’s research brings home the true impact of chemical saturation of our environment on us. We are at the top of the food chain, and it is our own grandchildren who will suffer the most from the over use of chemicals in the environment.
This makes us realise that in order to establish health for the human species into the future we have to look at the health of our environment. This can be at the individual family level of deciding what kind of cleaning products, renovation product, home furnishings and bathroom products we use, and opting for toxin free choices. It can also extend to thinking of the environment of the planet, our food growing practices, our transport use and the environmental sustainability of all our lifestyle choices.
This type of analysis can seem both daunting and tiresome, having to continually think about where we go, what we consume, yet another take-away container, another fuel burning trip, making us into the temperance police and putting us out of step with society.
However, such choices don’t always constitute a loss of lifestyle enjoyment. There are many very positive, community building, enriching life-choices, where groups are taking steps to move in the direction of more sustainable living practices and actually increasing their enjoyment of life.
These include the introduction of gardening into primary schools, championed by Costa of Gardening Australia and others of similar ilk, the new appreciation of local, organic, home-made foods, endorsed by Stephanie Alexander and other passionate chefs, the principles of permaculture, identified by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s and since being popularised around the world, and the eco-village movement where communities are designing and creating whole local settlements based on principles of sustainability. Many such eco-villages are forming in different countries, a particularly interesting example being Atamai Village in New Zealand, which is one of the most advanced and completely thought through, combining the need for privacy and independence with extensive common land production such as a communal orchard, farm and vineyard.
These initiatives are spreading rapidly in popularity, giving hope that overall, humanity is shifting to a greater awareness of ourselves as part of our environment, able to take collective responsibility for creating a world that can support and nurture the health of our species: That we can be a constructive player within a complex, intelligent, miraculous eco-system.
Along with changing the chemical make-up of our environment, we can also address health by changing what I call the "soundscape" of our environment. Again this can be done on a personal level, choosing the type of music we listen to and making Sound Therapy a part of our lives. It can also be done on a community level, designing machines, buildings and towns to reduce unnecessary and vexatious noise exposure. The more people become Sound Therapy users and learn of the delicate, integrated, nature of our ears and their essential contribution to our overall nervous system health, the more likely our society will be to create nurturing sound environments. Bringing more of nature and its natural high frequency, healing sounds into our surroundings means ‘sound health’ and ‘environmental health’ go hand in hand.
As such awareness increases, we can dare to hope a future generation will experience fewer ear infections, learning difficulties, stress related disorders, hearing loss and tinnitus.
