The earlier version of this article claimed that the ticking of a clock steadies the heart, that wind sounds strengthen the lungs and that a crackling fire aids digestion. None of that is true. The real picture is more useful: "sound therapy" is a family of quite different practices, ranging from a regulated clinical profession to a free app with a noise generator. They rest on very different amounts of evidence.
Here are the five you're most likely to meet, from most clinical to least. For the bigger question of what sound can and can't do for health, see our evidence review of sound therapy.
1. Music Therapy
What it is. The American Music Therapy Association defines music therapy as the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to reach individualized goals, delivered within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional. In the US that usually means a board-certified music therapist (MT-BC), someone who has completed an approved degree program and clinical training and passed a national exam. Other countries have their own registration systems.
How it works. Sessions can be active (singing, drumming, improvising, writing songs) or receptive (listening to music the therapist chooses, then talking it through). The therapist is the key ingredient; the music is a tool within a planned treatment.
Evidence. The strongest of anything on this list. Cochrane reviews have found benefits when music therapy is added to standard care for depression, and for overall functioning in autistic people, along with consistent reductions in anxiety in medical settings.
How to try it. Ask your doctor or hospital, or search a national registry. Check credentials: anyone can call a playlist "therapy."
2. Vibroacoustic Therapy
What it is. Developed in Norway by Olav Skille in the early 1980s, vibroacoustic therapy has you lie on a bed or sit in a chair fitted with speakers or transducers. They play low-frequency sine tones, originally in the 30–120 Hz range, mixed with music, so you feel the sound in your body as well as hear it.
How it works. The proposed mechanisms are physical: vibration affecting muscle tension, blood flow and how pain signals are processed. A 2021 review by Lee Bartel and Abdullah Mosabbir in the journal Healthcare laid out these possible pathways in detail and ended by calling for the comparative research that doesn't exist yet.
Evidence. Thin. The early literature is mostly case reports, and later trials are small and vary widely in frequencies, session length and equipment. It's a plausible, low-risk relaxation method with an unproven clinical record.
How to try it. Ideally through a music therapist or clinic trained in the method. Treat consumer "vibro" mats and chairs as relaxation gear, not treatment.
3. Binaural Beats
What it is. Play a 200 Hz tone in one ear and a 210 Hz tone in the other, and your brain perceives a third, pulsing "beat" at the 10 Hz difference. The physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove described the effect in 1839. Apps sell beats tuned to supposed brain states for focus, calm or sleep.
How it works. The marketing claims your brainwaves lock onto the beat, a process called entrainment. That part is shaky. A 2023 systematic review in PLOS ONE by Ruth Ingendoh and colleagues found 14 EEG studies: five supported entrainment, eight contradicted it and one was mixed.
Evidence. Modest but real for some outcomes. A 2019 meta-analysis by Garcia-Argibay, Santed and Reales in Psychological Research pooled 22 studies and found a medium-sized effect on memory, attention, anxiety and pain perception. Listening before a task worked better than listening only during it, and hiding the beats under noise made no difference.
How to try it. Use headphones (the effect needs separate signals in each ear), keep the volume low, try 15–20 minutes before a task, and never use beats while driving.
4. Sound Baths and Singing Bowls
What it is. You lie down while a practitioner plays sustained tones on singing bowls, gongs or chimes.
Evidence. Small studies show people reliably feel calmer right after a session. In a 2017 observational study led by Tamara Goldsby at the University of California, San Diego, 62 participants reported less tension, anger, fatigue and low mood after a singing-bowl meditation. There was no control group, and most of this research measures how people feel right afterwards.
How to try it. Book a session if you enjoy it, or recreate the useful parts at home. We cover both, along with the frequency myths (432 Hz, solfeggio tones), in sound baths: what actually works.
5. White, Pink and Brown Noise
What it is. Steady, random sound with no melody. White noise spreads energy evenly across frequencies and sounds hissy. Pink noise tilts toward the lows and sounds like steady rain. Brown noise goes deeper still, closer to a waterfall or distant surf.
How it works. Mostly through masking. A continuous sound raises the background level, so voices, traffic and door slams are less likely to grab your attention or wake you.
Evidence. Weaker than its popularity suggests. A 2021 systematic review in Sleep Medicine Reviews by Riedy, Smith, Rocha and Basner examined 38 studies of continuous noise as a sleep aid and rated the evidence very low quality. Some studies found people fell asleep faster, and at least one suggested noise disrupted sleep. The popular idea that pink noise deepens sleep traces back to lab work such as a 2013 study in Neuron by Hong-Viet Ngo, Jan Born and colleagues, in which a computer played 50-millisecond bursts of pink noise timed precisely to the slow brain waves of 11 sleepers. That improved memory consolidation, but it is not the same as running a pink-noise loop all night.
For focus, steady noise mainly covers distracting speech. We look at how well it works in brown noise and ADHD and the best sounds for focus and study.
How to try it. Start quiet, use a timer at night, and experiment: many people find natural textures like rain easier to live with than pure noise.
Trying Any of Them Safely
- Mind the volume. The WHO and ITU safe-listening standard uses a reference of 80 dB for no more than 40 hours a week for adults, and 75 dB for children. Background sound for sleep or focus should sit far below that, quieter than normal conversation.
- Don't replace treatment. For anxiety, depression, chronic pain, insomnia or tinnitus, see a qualified professional first and treat sound as an add-on.
- Stop if it makes things worse. Some sounds irritate rather than soothe, especially if you have tinnitus or sound sensitivity.
The Short Version
For a health condition, the option with real clinical backing is music therapy with a credentialed therapist. Binaural beats and sound baths are pleasant, low-risk ways to relax, with modest evidence. Colored noise is a good tool for blocking out the world, and a poor one for fixing your sleep by itself. Vibroacoustic therapy is interesting and still largely untested.
For the everyday, no-prescription end of the spectrum, Noizio mixes more than 40 ambient sounds, from white, pink and brown noise to rain and waves, on Mac and iOS. Or try them free in the web mixer.