Resynchrony
Resynchrony is the therapeutic process of restoring neurobiological and psychological rhythms that have become desynchronised through adverse physical and mental adversity.
Human Rhythmicity
Humans are rhythmical creatures, and uninterrupted rhythmicity is essential to our neurobiological functioning and psychological wellbeing.
The rhythms of life include the microscopic pulsations of cells, the pumping action of the heart, the tidal motions of breathing, the electrical oscillations we call brain waves, the undulations of the digestive tract known as peristalsis, the cyclic secretion of hormones, the phases of focused attention, the repeating behaviours of our perseverative routines, the percussive patterns of walking and talking, alternating periods of exertion and rest, and the recurrent alternation between sleeping and waking.
Rhythmic Synchrony
Our wellbeing and ability to function depend not only on these and many other rhythms but also on their synchrony.
For example, we facilitate sleep by synchronising slow brain waves to melatonin secretion.
We facilitate waking by synchronising fast brain waves to serotonin secretion.
We transport oxygen and nutrients throughout our body by synchronising breathing rhythms to the heartbeat, so their rate increases and decreases together.
We preserve pathogen defence and regulate inflammation by synchronising dreamless sleep with immune system activity.
We align pauses in conversation with inhalation by synchronising our breathing patterns to speech rhythms.
We coordinate fluid movements by synchronising skeletal muscle contraction to neural activity in the motor cortex.
Ecosynchrony
These synchronous neurobiological activities once closely aligned with the external rhythms of our ecosystem, which include planetary orbits, ocean tides, seasonal cycles, and the recurring alternation between day and night.
For example, we synchronised slow brain waves and melatonin secretion with the darkness of night.
We synchronised fast brain waves and serotonin secretion with the morning light.
The menstrual cycle synchronised with the lunar cycle.
Meanwhile, people indigenous to coastal communities synchronised sleep patterns and wakeful activity with the ebb and flow of tides.
Today, artificial light, urbanised environments, industrial working rotas, and an unrelenting invasive stream of digital data often obfuscate connection to the natural environment and severe the synchrony between neurobiological and ecological rhythms.
Resynchrony is an intrinsic mechanism for resetting and resynchronising neurobiological rhythms when they become disrupted and desynchronised.
Deep Rest
This mechanism of reset and resynchronisation requires a state of Deep Rest, which occurs during phases of sleep and while we are absorbed in the flow of creative or contemplative activities.
Resynchrony and its requisite state of Deep Rest is a core component of allostasis, which continually adapts internal neurobiological conditions in response to changes in the external environment.
Energy
Deep Rest is required not only to undertake Resynchrony but also to replenish energy.
Furthermore, without the replenishment of energy facilitated by Deep Rest, we become exhausted and unable to sustain physical or mental health.
Every activity requires energy, including walking and talking, crying and laughing, blinking and swallowing, producing blood cells and repairing tissue, digesting food and excreting waste, strengthening bones and building muscle, growing hair and renewing skin, formulating thoughts and interpreting feelings, remembering past events and envisioning future possibilities, calculating risk and making decisions.
Oxygen absorbed from the air we breathe releases the energy stored in the food we eat.
This process generates energy from dietary calories, which we consume while performing our activities.
However, we cannot generate sufficient energy to support all activities simultaneously.
Therefore, each activity receives a scheduled energy boost at specific times throughout the day to support a period of maximum work.
Consequently, there are optimal periods during the day for activities such as thinking, digesting, remembering, planning, and exercising.
Biological Clocks
The scheduling of activities depends upon time-keeping molecules embedded in cells throughout our body.
These molecular timekeepers synchronise with a master clock in the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
This master clock measures time primarily by detecting changes in ambient light, indicative of the twenty-four-hour day and night cycle.
Meanwhile, we also interpret environmental sounds to ascertain the time of day or night.
The Brain
Biological clocks schedule essential neurobiological rhythms, which ensure the efficient flow of energy throughout our body.
The brain coordinates and regulates all neurobiological rhythms and consumes twenty per cent of our available energy.
The human brain is composed of one hundred billion nerve cells called neurons.
These neurons form interconnected networks of regions that perform specialised functions.
Neural regions include the medulla, which sustains our heartbeat and breathing; the thalamus, which registers our sensations; the hippocampus, which forms our memories; the amygdala, which rouses our emotions; the prefrontal cortex, which formulates our thoughts; the auditory cortex, which analyses the sounds we hear, the angular gyrus, which helps us understand what people say; and the motor cortex, which coordinates our voluntary movements.
The Nervous System
Our body and brain connect through networks of nerves called nervous systems, including two with complementary functions.
These two networks are called the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
The sympathetic nervous system activates when we perceive safety to be threatened or uncertain.
For example, it increases heart and breathing rates while stimulating the secretion of adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol, and vasopressin, mobilising the energy required to seek safety urgently.
In contrast, the parasympathetic nervous system activates when we perceive safety to be certain.
For example, it decreases heart and breathing rates while stimulating the secretion of Dopamine, endorphins, Serotonin, and Oxytocin, which conserves energy and calms us so we may rest.
Chemical Waste
Brain activity generates chemical waste that accumulates in neurons throughout the day.
This waste includes a toxin called beta-amyloid, which can contribute to diseases such as dementia if it accrues.
Therefore, rhythmic waves of cerebrospinal and interstitial fluid periodically flush these waste products into the lymphatic system, where they are drained and excreted.
This cleansing process is called glymphatic clearance.
Our biological clocks schedule glymphatic clearance to occur during regular periods of dreamless sleep throughout the night.
Psychological Residue
Our daily activities also generate psychological residue.
Throughout each waking day, we navigate the external environment through a sequence of interactions known as episodes.
A region of the brain called the hippocampus encodes and retains these episodes, which are called episodic or autobiographical memories.
Each episodic memory encapsulates the sensations, thoughts, and feelings that characterise a moment of our lived experience.
The hippocampus arranges episodic memories into a chronological narrative, enabling us to remember the immediate past and proceed intentionally toward the future.
People with damage to their hippocampus cannot retain these episodic memories and forget what they did a few moments ago.
Neurocognitive Organisation
When our waking day ends, the hippocampus is full of episodic memories because its capacity is finite.
Therefore, the brain must clear the hippocampus and transfer neurally encoded records of recent experience to a region called the neocortex, where they are organised and stored with other memories for later retrieval.
This organisation and storage is called memory consolidation and is integral to a multifaceted process of neurocognitive organisation.
In addition to memory consolidation, neurocognitive organisation resolves present problems by reappraising past experiences, clarifies thoughts so we can make considered decisions, dissipates aversive emotions so we can recall distressing events without exacerbating trauma, and sustains the personal continuity we call our Self.
Plasticity
Neurocognitive organisation depends upon neural plasticity, which enhances the flexibility of the brain by continually restructuring connections between neurons.
This process prunes some neural connections, strengthens others, and forms new ones.
Neural plasticity is critical for assimilating what we learn from new experiences into existing knowledge, complementing memory consolidation.
Hypnos
Neurocognitive organisation is imperative to mental health and occurs primarily during periods of deep rest.
Our biological clocks schedule neurocognitive organisation during the transition from wakefulness to sleep in the evening, the transition from sleep to wakefulness in the morning, and at regular intervals during the night when we dream.
The transition from wakefulness to sleep is called hypnagogia, and the passage from sleep to wakefulness is called hypnopompia.
These words come from Hypnos, the Greek word for sleep.
Throughout the night, our state alternates between dreamless sleep, which supports glymphatic clearance, and dreaming sleep, which facilitates neurocognitive organisation.
However, neurocognitive organisation can also occur during the deep rest induced by contemplative practices and immersive sensory experiences, including listening to rhythmic sounds and music.
Oneiria
During periods of deep rest, our experience becomes less episodic and more oneiric, a term derived from the Greek word for dream.
The episodic experience that characterises most of our waking life unfolds as a chronological narrative.
Meanwhile, oneiric experiences captivate our attention with a stream of images, thoughts, and feelings unconstrained by narrative context or temporal order.
For centuries, artists, poets, scientists, inventors, and visionaries have attributed their inspiration and ingenuity to oneiric states, which include dreaming, ecstatic reverie, creative absorption, and meditative contemplation.
Periods of oneiria that emerge from deep rest can cultivate imagination, enabling us to harness resourcefulness and fulfil our potential in unforeseen ways.
Oneiric experience arises from the way neurocognitive organisation disassembles the episodes of our life, restructuring them into meaningful mental maps.
This process of disassembly and reconstruction, which preserves our cognitive lucidity, emotional equanimity, and personal identity, requires deep rest.
Deep Rest Deficit
Many people suffer the consequences of insufficient deep rest and consequent impairment of Resynchrony.
As a result, they lose clarity of thought, attentional focus, and emotional stability.
Additionally, some remain troubled by the past, perplexed in the present, and apprehensive about the future.
Meanwhile, resilience and adaptability often wane as the continuity of personal identity weakens.
While there are multiple reasons why so many suffer from insufficient Deep Rest, Unsafety remains the most common cause.
The lack of Deep Rest caused by our restless search for safety impedes Resynchrony with deleterious and often fatal consequences.
Safety Signals
We continually interpret stimuli in the external environment, discerning between safe and unsafe signals, which include the speech, vocal intonations, facial expressions, and gestures of others.
We inherit the predisposition to identify some safe and unsafe signals while we learn to recognise others during childhood.
Recurrent or persistent exposure to signals that indicate threatened or uncertain safety induces an enduring state of vigilance.
This state keeps us permanently on our guard as we anticipate losing safety, evoking sensations, thoughts, and feelings of insecurity, mistrust, and fear.
Furthermore, vigilance ensures we remain restlessly ready to seek safety urgently if the need arises, prohibiting deep rest.
Neurochemical Patterns
Restlessness and deep rest emerge from antithetical patterns of neurochemical activity.
Restless states emerge from fast brain waves, sympathetic nervous system activation, and chemical secretions dominated by adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol, and vasopressin.
These states occupy a spectrum from positive exhilaration and alert concentration to debilitating dread and hypervigilance.
Resting states emerge from slow brain waves, parasympathetic nervous system activation, and chemical secretions dominated by Dopamine, endorphins, Serotonin, and Oxytocin.
These states occupy a spectrum from wakeful imaginative ideation and effortless attention to deep rest and dreamless sleep.
Between the contrary extremes of rest and restlessness is a multitude of operational states that characterise our waking hours, when we are neither resting nor restless but purposefully engaged and adaptively responsive to our environment.
The neurochemical activity patterns of resting states support energy replenishment, physiological restoration, emotional equanimity, and neurocognitive organisation.
The neurochemical activity patterns of restless states support immediate responses to events and circumstances that threaten or undermine the certainty of our safety.
Ideally, these events and circumstances are infrequent and resolve quickly, hastening our return to operational and resting states.
However, many people remain perpetually unsafe, while others perceive safety as recurrently threatened or persistently uncertain.
These predicaments confine them to restless states in a relentless pursuit of safety.
Energy Diversion
The pursuit of safety has grown increasingly complex and multidimensional over human evolution.
Today, we rarely pursue safety from the same predatory assaults of our ancestors but from poverty and homelessness, unemployment and dependency, exclusion and loneliness, intimidation and discrimination, sickness and disability.
When temporary adversity threatens or undermines the certainty of our safety, the brain redirects energy away from non-urgent, long-term processes.
We subsequently consume this sequestered energy in our endeavours to seek safety urgently.
For example, digesting food, strengthening bones, building muscle, growing hair, renewing skin, remembering yesterday, and planning tomorrow all reduce activity and relinquish energy for immediate repurposing.
Subsequently, when we have restored safety, energy returns to these processes with no consequential impact on our physical or mental health.
However, when our safety is subject to recurrent threats or remains persistently uncertain, an incessant lack of energy impairs these long-term processes.
The consequent depletion of energy supply to critical physiological and psychological processes disrupts neurobiological rhythms and their synchrony.
Furthermore, the neurochemical activity patterns of restlessness pervade sleep, disrupting the conditions required for both glymphatic clearance and neurocognitive organisation, leading to physiological degeneration, cognitive decline, and emotional volatility.
Additionally, insufficient periods of deep rest and undisturbed sleep are severely detrimental to our immune system.
These periods of deep rest provide optimal conditions for producing immune cells and regulating inflammation, sustaining our defence against infection and disease.
When deep rest and sleep are insufficient, these processes become impaired, often resulting in increased susceptibility to illness and prolonged recovery times.
The Resynchrony Remedy
The widespread Deep Rest deficit and consequent diminished Resynchrony have precipitated a concerted interdisciplinary effort to formulate effective remedies.
Among the most effective therapeutic modalities for inducing Deep Rest and restoring Resynchrony are those that recruit rhythmic sensory stimulation.
Rhythmic sound and music are particularly effective at facilitating Resynchrony.
Ancestral Rhythms
Since the dawn of human evolution, all peoples have listened to rhythmic sounds and music, transfixed with fascination and fortified by what they heard.
Our ancient ancestors began by listening to the ambient sounds of nature before imitating environmental rhythms with drums made by stretching animal skins over wooden frames and fashioning flutes from hollowed bones.
The sounds of water were particularly appealing to early peoples and have retained their allure.
Tempo
Listening to audible rhythms can induce a state of Deep Rest and initiate Resynchrony by directly influencing neurobiological rhythms.
A steady repeating beat is an intrinsic characteristic of rhythmic sounds and music.
Musicians refer to the speed of this beat as tempo and maintain it with a metronome during practice and rehearsal.
The measurement of tempo is beats per minute.
We can determine the tempo of any steady beat by measuring how many times it repeats in a minute.
For example, a ticking clock has a tempo of 60 ticks per minute.
The following audio demonstration illustrates what 60 beats per minute sounds like when played on a metronome.
Unlike the steady beat of a metronome or accurate ticking clock, some tempos vary over time.
For example, healthy adults walk at a variable tempo between 100 and 120 footsteps per minute, speak at a tempo between 100 and 150 words per minute, and breathe at a tempo between 8 and 12 breaths per minute while their hearts pump at a tempo between 60 and 90 contractions per minute.
We can convert the tempos of such activities into sound by replacing footsteps, spoken words, breaths, heart contractions, or any other rhythmic action with metronome clicks.
Internal Metronome
Our involuntary and automatic rhythmic activities, such as breathing and heart contractions, depend upon the medulla oblongata, which is part of the brainstem.
Meanwhile, our voluntary rhythmic movements, such as walking and talking, depend upon a collection of brain regions called the basal ganglia, which includes a neural structure called the putamen.
Rhythmic activities such as walking and talking require the ability to maintain a tempo.
The putamen plays a crucial role in maintaining this tempo, providing an internal steady beat that articulates fluid, rhythmically coordinated movements.
Without this internal steady beat, we would walk in erratic bursts, unable to put one foot in front of the other continually at a regular pace.
We synchronise not only walking but also the articulation of our speech and other rhythmically coordinated movements to internal tempos.
Impairment or damage to the putamen disrupts these internal tempos, making rhythmic activities more difficult.
This impairment is a characteristic of Parkinson's disease, which severely hinders the ability to coordinate rhythmic activity, including walking.
However, synchronising voluntary movements to auditory rhythmic stimulation, such as walking to music, can help patients with Parkinson's disease regain locomotive rhythmicity by externally compensating for the impaired putamen, which would normally maintain the tempo internally.
Beat Induction
In healthy individuals, the auditory cortex and motor cortex support the putamen, collectively functioning like a neural metronome that extracts a beat from the sounds we hear and maintains an internal representation of its tempo.
This process is called beat induction.
However, the steady beat of music is often silent.
Nonetheless, our neural metronome can detect the tempo even when it is inaudible.
The spontaneous synchronising of movements, such as tapping and dancing to a steady beat, is called the rhythm response.
Entrainment
Spontaneous rhythmic synchronisation was first observed in the mid-17th century when Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock.
While developing his timepiece, Huygens hung a collection of pendulums from a wooden beam, setting them to swing randomly before retiring for the night.
By morning, all the pendulums were swinging in unison.
Pendulum clocks synchronise because the waves of energy produced by their motion flow between them and interact.
All energy flows in waves, and all waves have a rhythm, including light waves, sound waves, brain waves, and the mechanical waves of pendulums.
When waves of energy with different rhythms come into contact, they often spontaneously adjust their frequency until synchronised to the same tempo.
This spontaneous synchronisation is called entrainment.
Many animals exhibit entrainment, synchronising their sounds and movements to the same tempo, including shoals of swimming fish, troops of jumping kangaroos, droves of hopping rabbits, flocks of warbling birds, colonies of croaking frogs, and swarms of chirping crickets.
Groups of humans also entrain their movements and voices to the same tempo.
For example, two close friends walking and talking will naturally entrain the rhythm of their footsteps and speech to the same tempo.
Harmonics
Humans and other animals do not all move and vocalise in perfect unison but synchronise their sounds and motions to the same tempo, like an ensemble of instruments playing to the steady beat of a metronome.
Brainwave Entrainment
When we listen to rhythmic sounds and music, our brain waves often behave like drums synchronised to a tempo and its harmonics.
Our neural metronome, comprising the auditory cortex, motor cortex, and putamen, extracts a steady beat from the sounds we hear and maintains an internal representation of its tempo through beat induction.
Subsequently, some brain waves synchronise to that tempo.
Meanwhile, other brain waves synchronise to its harmonics.
Together, these brain waves create an arrangement with neural coherence analogous to a coherent composition of audible rhythms, demonstrated in the previous drumming composition.
Neural coherence is foundational to how the brain formulates holistic perceptions from multiple disparate sensations.
Meanwhile, brainwaves provide the electrical foundations for our many states.
Brainwave Ranges
The frequency of electrical oscillations we call brain waves is variable, speeding up and slowing down to support different states.
These states range from dreamless sleep through active concentration to hypervigilant unrest.
However, the frequency of brain waves is so fast that we typically measure how many times they repeat per second instead of per minute.
Nonetheless, we can equate these frequencies to an audible tempo if we multiply them by 60.
For example, during dreamless sleep, brain waves have their slowest frequencies, ranging between 1 and 4 beats per second.
This spectrum is called the Delta range of brain waves and corresponds conceptually to tempos between 60 and 240 beats per minute.
During dreaming and other oneiric states, brain waves accelerate to frequencies ranging between 4 and 8 beats per second.
This spectrum is called the Theta range of brain waves and corresponds conceptually to tempos between 240 and 480 beats per minute.
When we are awake but relaxed, these brain waves speed up further to frequencies ranging between 8 and 14 beats per second.
This spectrum is called the Alpha range of brain waves and corresponds conceptually to tempos between between 480 and 840 beats per minute.
When we are highly alert, brain waves accelerate to frequencies between 14 and 30 beats per second.
This spectrum is called the Beta range of brain waves and corresponds conceptually to tempos between 840 and 1800 beats per minute.
At any moment in time, the brain emits billions of brain waves, combining those from the Delta, Theta, Alpha, and Beta ranges to create an overall composition that supports diverse, ever-changing states.
However, each state usually emerges from the predominance of brain waves from a specific range.
The diversity of human states encompasses alert activity, dominated by Beta; wakeful relaxation, dominated by Alpha; restful oneiria, including hypnagogia, hypnopompia, and dreaming sleep, dominated by Theta; and dreamless sleep, dominated by Delta.
Anticipating the Beat
Listening to suitable rhythmic sounds and music elicits beat induction.
Furthermore, brain waves will often synchronise to the tempo and harmonics of this auditory stimulation.
Thereby, when sounds and music meet specific criteria, this synchrony slows brain waves, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, and stimulates the secretion of Dopamine, endorphins, Serotonin, and Oxytocin.
This pattern of neurochemical activity promotes deep rest, establishing conditions conducive to neurocognitive organisation.
Within moments of hearing rhythmic sounds or music, the auditory cortex, motor cortex, and putamen work together to detect a steady beat.
Subsequently, our neural metronome maintains an internal representation of this tempo by predicting the timing of each beat.
These internal beats occur a few milliseconds ahead of the musical ones because they arise from prediction.
Consequently, while tapping our feet or dancing seemingly in synchrony with music, our movements do not synchronise in real-time to the musical tempo.
Instead, our movements synchronise to the beats we anticipate based on neural predictions.
Consequently, we move slightly earlier than the musical tempo in anticipation of the next beat.
When the musical beat occurs milliseconds later, it confirms the predictive accuracy of the brain.
The pleasure evoked by music comes partly from the Dopamine secreted in anticipation of the next beat.
Dopamine
Dopamine evokes the pleasure we experience in anticipation of any desired reward.
For example, anticipating a cold beer on a hot day, a long vacation, a date with someone we love, a pay raise, or the next beat of a song can stimulate dopamine secretion.
Simply thinking expectantly about such rewards is sufficient to trigger dopamine secretion.
Dopamine also motivates the pursuit of rewards, directs attention, and elevates mood, supporting a determination to fulfil our desires.
In addition, Dopamine makes a critical contribution to coordinating bodily movement.
Without adequate Dopamine, we would not only lack the positive mood and anticipatory motivation to pursue rewards but also falter in coordinating our gestures and locomotion.
These combined functions of Dopamine derive from our evolutionary origins.
Our early ancestors attained most rewards through motility, including mating, foraging, hunting, cooking, and building shelter.
These endeavours required motivated anticipation and coordinated voluntary movement.
It was biologically efficient for a single chemical to support both needs.
The rudimentary pursuits of our ancestors were possible because the putamen receives a copious supply of Dopamine and is highly connected to the motor cortex, which is responsible for voluntary movement.
As a consequence, the beat of rhythmic sounds and music compels us to move, activating the motor cortex even if we remain still while listening.
Endorphins
An additional rewarding pleasure occasioned by music comes from our success in predicting the next beat, which stimulates the secretion of endorphins.
This group of chemicals initiate a surge of euphoria.
The word euphoria comes from Greek, where eu means good, pleasurable, true, and well, while phoria means to bring forth.
Therefore, euphoria literally means to bring forth a good and pleasurable state of true wellbeing.
Endorphins possess analgesic properties that relieve somatic pain and discomfort.
Consequently, listening to music can complement medicinal interventions for those recovering from injury or surgery.
Serotonin
Sustaining and stabilising the pleasurable experience of anticipation and reward initiated by Dopamine and endorphins depends significantly upon Serotonin, which fulfils several functions.
Firstly, Serotonin helps the auditory cortex, motor cortex, and putamen anticipate and adjust internal tempo in response to rhythmic musical changes.
When serotonin levels are low, our predictions become less accurate.
Consequently, anticipating and adjusting internal tempos in response to rhythmic musical changes becomes more difficult.
Secondly, Serotonin stabilises our mood, prolonging comfort and serenity.
When serotonin levels are low, the euphoric surges and somatic comfort derived from Dopamine and endorphins do not lead to this stabilised experience of pleasure.
However, serotonin secretion is influenced by whether we like the sounds and rhythms we hear.
The term for sounds we perceive as pleasurable is euphonic.
The term for rhythms we perceive as pleasant is eurhythmic.
These words derive from Greek, meaning good sound and good rhythm.
Euphonic and eurythmic audible stimulation is likely to increase serotonin secretion.
Meanwhile, sounds and music that we perceive as unpleasant and aversive are likely to decrease serotonin secretion.
Oxytocin
The predictability of musical tempo not only evokes pleasure but also instils a sense of safety.
Oxytocin makes an indispensable contribution to our sense of safety.
For example, the brain secretes Oxytocin when we are among those we love and cherish, enhancing interpersonal intimacy and perceived protection from unwelcome intrusion.
The sense of safety, which is a critical prerequisite for deep rest, depends significantly upon our ability to predict the future.
An entirely predictable future can lead to under-stimulation, boredom, depressed mood, and lack of motivation.
However, an entirely unpredictable future can lead to restless states characterised by worrisome apprehension.
Furthermore, when the future is so unpredictable that our safety seems persistently uncertain, we can become hypervigilant, which hinders deep rest.
Euphonic and eurhythmic auditory stimulation, including music and ambient soundscapes, can balance predictability with variation by organising changing acoustic patterns around the principle of rhythmic predictability.
This auditory experience can instil a sense of safety while remaining sufficiently stimulating to sustain our attention.
Soft Fascination
When we listen to appealing rhythmic sounds and music, the predictable tempo maintained by our neural metronome, comprising the auditory cortex, motor cortex, and putamen, stimulates oxytocin secretion, instilling a sense of safety.
Dopamine, endorphins, Serotonin, and Oxytocin thereby combine to turn rhythmic sounds and music into a potential source of therapeutic benefit.
However, for audible rhythms to induce deep rest, they must effortlessly captivate our attention.
This quality of effortless attention is called soft fascination and often occurs when we spend time in natural environments.
Sensory Immersion
Listening to the ambient sounds of nature is an immersive experience because we hear sound from all directions: left and right, in front and behind, above and below.
This immersion is reminiscent of our earliest experience in the womb.
The foetus is highly sensitive to an orchestra of sounds that permeate the abdominal enclosure, particularly lower-frequency vibrations, which travel effortlessly through amniotic fluid.
A podcast debate, some friendly chitchat, the passing of traffic, and the clatter of domestic objects send acoustic ripples through the uterine swell.
Meanwhile, the sonorous activity of the mother swallowing, digesting, breathing, and speaking joins the watery orchestra.
Consequently, a sphere of sound envelops the nestling.
The maternal heartbeat anchors this enveloping sound bath to a cardiac tempo like an instrumental ensemble to a metronome.
The rhythms in the womb form lasting imprints upon prenatal memory, which include the unique cadence of the maternal voice.
Immediately after birth, a baby can recognise the mother by her distinctive vocal rhythms.
Sounds of Nature
We revisit the immersive, sonorous safety provided by the womb whenever we listen to the living soundscape of nature with soft fascination.
When we dwell in the effortless attention of this experience, our neural metronome detects a steady beat within the ambient orchestra, eliciting the rhythm response.
Even when a steady beat is not explicit in the audible ambience, our neural metronome generates one, adjusting our perception of sound through a superimposition called top-down processing.
This mechanism contrasts with the bottom-up processing that extracts a steady beat from what we hear.
Ambisonics
Today, we can record and reproduce natural ambient sounds and incorporate them into rhythmic music to create an authentic, immersive experience for the listener when played through headphones.
This method of capturing and recreating ambient acoustics is called ambisonics, which provides an immersive auditory experience.
This immersion can facilitate and support deep rest and oneiric states, establishing conditions conducive to neurocognitive organisation.
The Resynchrony Paradigm
I have coined the term Resynchrony to signify the process of restoring neurobiological and psychological rhythms that have become desynchronised through adverse physical and mental adversity.
Furthermore, I intend it to also refer to a formulated paradigm of principles and practices that anyone can use to facilitate this process, either as a form of self-administered or under the supervision of a facilitator.
Resynchrony synthesises the principles and practices of several therapeutic traditions, including Voice Movement Therapy, pioneered by Paul Newham.
Specifically, Resynchrony appropriates elements from existing modalities that recruit rhythmic sensory stimulation to alleviate symptoms associated with a range of challenges, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), Social Anxiety, Insomnia, and Chronic Stress.
For example, when neurocognitive organisation functions optimally, the memory of a distressing episode becomes less vivid, and its emotional intensity diminishes over time with each subsequent recollection.
However, for some people, including those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the memory of a distressing episode remains vivid while retaining its emotional intensity, such that remembering it is like reliving the original event.
By encouraging memory consolidation, a component of neurocognitive organisation, immersive rhythmic auditory stimulation can diffuse distressing memories, reducing their capacity to overwhelm the present.
Meanwhile, the attentional equilibrium and emotional equanimity that rhythmic sound and music elicit through deep rest and neurocognitive organisation can increase concentration and reduce impulsivity in those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Deep rest prepares us physiologically and psychologically for sleep, inducing hypnagogia as its natural precursor.
Therefore, cultivating deep rest through regular periods of listening to immersive auditory rhythmic stimulation can help with overcoming insomnia.
Furthermore, because deep rest is antithetical to the restlessness that characterises chronic stress, immersive auditory rhythmic stimulation can help diminish its intensity and longevity.
Visual and Tactile Rhythms
The preceding overview focuses on the nature of auditory rhythm.
However, visual and tactile rhythms also have therapeutic potential.
Furthermore, audible, visual, and tactile rhythms are integral to some existing established therapeutic interventions.
For example, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) encompasses both visual and auditory bilateral stimulation; Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) incorporates music and rhythmic motor entrainment; Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) uses rhythmic tactile tapping; Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) employs rhythmic patterns of the body in motion; and hypnotherapists often recruit covert verbal rhythms.
Meanwhile, Interpersonal Social Rhythm Therapy (ISRT) provides a supportive structure for establishing and committing to behavioural rhythms and routines.
Creator Contributions
The rigour and reliability of purported scientific explanations for these interventions vary and lack consensus.
Furthermore, some of them are the subject of intractable controversies.
Nonetheless, rhythm is evidently integral to multiple therapeutic interventions, which incorporate its audible, visual, and tactile modalities in different ways.
Furthermore, digital audio-visual media proliferated by the internet has spawned a contemporary culture founded upon self-administered techniques and practices.
Creators often produce and share this media with self-help seekers independently of clinical practitioners.
For example, bilateral stimulation is now the subject of many online videos produced by creative artists for those seeking self-help.
Meanwhile, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) audio-visual media, a popular aid to passive self-soothing, originated from entirely creative endeavours unconnected to clinical practice.
Finally, there are a number of formulated collective practices that employ rhythm to facilitate a shared therapeutic experience, including those derivative of ancient participatory arts, such as Drumming Circles.
The Future of Resynchrony
The emerging modality I call Resynchrony endeavours to synthesise the principles of diverse ancient and contemporary practices into an evidence-based paradigm that can support the creative and clinical application of rhythm.
You can discover more as Resynchrony unfolds on YouTube and Medium