What is Sound Meditation?
At Vyrao we are always looking for ways to quiet the distractions of everyday life. Sound meditation is up there for us; a sound meditation uses vibration and frequency to clear the mind enabling a deeper meditative experience, and the benefits are scientifically proven. If you’re not sure what a sound meditation is think church bells, chanting, the aboriginal digeridoo. Thanks to our friend Chris Connors, a sound meditation practitioner who lives between London and Ibiza, and his incredible app OPO, we are converts to his next level immersive neuro-sonic 3-D sound meditations that have the power to transport us to another realm.

We’re hooked on the Ibiza meditation portals on OPO, but we are lucky enough that Chris has created a meditation exclusively for Vyrao. We recommend you light a Vyrao incense and start your day with Energise in the Spring Portal on OPO. Below, Chris shares his journey, the benefits of sound meditation, and explains why 432Hz is the ultimate sound vibration.

Melanie Rickey:  Chris, when did you discover meditation?
Chris Connors: I started to meditate when I was 25. Previously to that I had grown up in Belfast and at a very early age was caught in a bomb which threw me into unconsciousness. When I woke up I experienced an incredible feeling, I realised that I was breathing, that I was alive. I was only a kid, but that profound feeling of knowing I was alive and breathing stayed with me. 

MR: How did you become qualified?
CC: There isn’t a designated route to become an expert on meditation, it’s about experience and practise. When my mother died in my early 20s, grief tore me apart. I started to retrain as a psychotherapist, and my teacher introduced me to meditation, which took over my life. I studied at Zen monasteries in Japan India and ashrams in India. 

MR: How did you discover sound meditation? 
CC: When I came back and began working as a psychotherapist, a lot of my clients would say, “I can't get rid of the noise in my head”. I started to question what is it when we say our minds are noisy, you know? I was realising not only the power of meditation, but the power of sounds and how they contribute to healing. 

MR: How do your practise sound meditation?
CC: It’s like any meditation, except that you are incorporating vibrational tones through either instruments or the way we do it on OPO, by using electronic sounds. The journey of the sounds help people start to allow their mind to get into focus. It’s not about feeling on a high, I’m here to help people get centred, to be steady.

MR: Tell us more about the sounds you use?
CC: An OPO meditation is like a film score. We capture the traditional resonance and vibrations of gongs, singing bowls and chanting but we use also use frequencies that have been captured by NASA in space, sounds we can’t hear but that our body understands and which stimulate certain aspects of our brain. Some of them aren’t even beautiful, but we put them in, for example 432 Hz is the resonant frequency of our planet, and it's the frequency of our heart; that's just the way it vibrates. And it’s not some woowoo, its science. When we input those into our meditations, people naturally have a heart opening experience, and de-stress.

MR: What’s your response to people who think this kind of meditation is woo-woo? 
CC: If you meditate, the difference to your life and sense of wellbeing is real. It's a big subject right now. It is really why meditation has become what it has in this past 10 years. Because neuroscientists such as Dr. Sara Lazar of Harvard Medical School have proven that meditation promotes neuroplasticity. 

MR: What’s a good starter length for a sound meditation?
CC: I would say 20 minutes is a good place to start. Though if you give it an hour you are really meditating. 

MR: Can you talk us through the experience of a 20 minute meditation?
CC: The mind does not immediately just click in, it takes time. So there's an entering in, and then we have a deeper part of the meditation when there is a neural response, which is actively promoting neuroplasticity when the brain is moving more than if we're thinking or doing anything else. The best way to come out of meditation is to feel you're relaxed and active at the same time. That's the beautiful sweet spot of meditation.

Thank you Chris. Discover the OPO app at the App Store.