Sound Healing in Schools: Accessible and Effective at Addressing Modern Challenges in Education
Students at a high school in Issaquah, WA participating in a sound bath meditation the week before finals. Students can participate sitting up or laying down. Most students opted to lay on the floor.
How It Started
In the spring of 2016 a friend of mine (who was a teacher at a public high school in the Issaquah, WA school district) shared with me the experience she was having with students trying to manage stress, anxiety, depressions, ADHD, and other obstacles to student enrichment and learning. The first thing I asked was "do you think I can help?"
That questions started a conversation about how we could bring sound-assisted meditation (sound healing) to the students and what that might look like. We decided to do it in June, the week before their final exams, when things tend to be the most stressful. Two elective sessions were held (one in the morning and one in the afternoon "after school"). As an incentive students were offered the ability to earn extra credit by attending. Both sessions were packed (the largest one being over 50 students)!
“I actually got myself to sleep. Thank you for coming.”
The Data
With the help of my friend (the teacher) we developed a way to measure that challenges most impacting the students:
Stress
Anxiety
Depression
Low Energy
Hyperactivity
Feeling Distracted
Before the session started students were surveyed on their experience of each of these challenges
Frequency of Experience This School Year: Every Day | Every Week | Every Month | Every Few Months | Never
Degree of Experience This Week: Very Intensely | Strongly | Moderately | A Little Bit | Not At All
After the session they surveyed to report the degree to which they were having the same six experiences immediately after the session:
Degree Experience After Meditation: Very Intensely | Strongly | Moderately | A Little Bit | Not At All
The data speak for itself! You can visibly see how their reported experience improves in all six categories (see the data below). For what it’s worth, my experience with high school students is that they will be brutally honest if they think something is a sham.
“Thank you so much. It really helped.”
I haven't yet been able to collect data for the sustained impact of these sessions and it’s something I’d really like the opportunity to do. I can attest to anecdotes from my friend and her colleagues continued to follow up with me to relay their experience with the students in the weeks following. They cited "unbelievable shifts" in some of their most challenged students with ADHD. These anecdotes have me eager for another opportunity to measure the sustained benefits over a longer period of time.
I am so grateful to my friend ("Profe Maryam"), the school staff, and students who made this possible. It was profound to hold space and be witness to the positive impacts. I feel fortunate to have been a part of it!
Sound Healing in Your School
If you are a student, parent or teacher, please contact me if you're interested to create a program to bring the benefits of mindfulness, meditation, sound healing, or experiential sound education to your school.