How Sound Therapy Improves Your Ears

Audiologist Dr George Richards attributes the success of Sound Therapy to its stimulation of the efferent (descending) auditory pathways. Descending motor pathways are used by the brain to tell the muscles what to do. The action of Sound Therapy, via these pathways, enables the brain to retrain the ear muscles to proper function.

In the same way that your arm or leg does not become completely limp when not in use but maintains a proper tone all of the time (unless injured) because of constant instructions from the brain to the muscles to contract and relax, the ear likewise requires a continuous flow of information that provides maximum tone to the middle ear muscles. This is one of the main theories of Sound Therapy: that it restores tone to the middle ear muscle system and in turn tunes up the entire auditory system..

The Opening of the Ear

Tomatis speaks of the "opening of the ear", which is an occurrence which happens on the combined physical and psychological levels. It means that the ear has regained its natural, full responsiveness to sound. It can be gradual or sudden, dramatic or almost imperceptible - the degree of noticeable effect depends on the degree to which the ear was closed off to sound.

The pre-requisites to the ear opening can be any of:

• rehabilitation of the middle ear muscles
• a psychological shift which allows sound to impact the psyche on a deeper level
• rearranging of the route by which sound is conveyed to the auditory cortex so that there is a direct and efficient relationship between ear and brain.

Once the ear has opened, the brain is receptive to the re-charging effect of high frequency sounds. At this point, listening to Sound Therapy music recorded with Tomatis' method will increase your energy levels.