Life isn’t easy. Growing up, studying, working, starting a family or moving from one phase to another can be complicated. Life often involves distress, anxiety and sometimes even agony.

Stress and poor emotional health can affect your physical health by weakening your immune system, thereby making you more vulnerable to infection and illnesses.

Sometimes people need to pause and have a good rest before going back to their stressful day to day reality. Different people have different preferences as to methods for feeling well. Sound Healing is one such method that you may not be familiar with yet.

Sound healing is more of an art or a spiritual practice like meditation rather than a medical treatment or science and if you are feeling seriously ill you should consult with a medical doctor.

That said, relaxation and stress relief are tangible benefits that sound healing can inarguably provide people.

Marylaure Dufrenne is a French yoga teacher who is introducing Cambodia to this unique method for achieving a deep state of relaxation and mindfulness. She says that the practice uses sound vibrations in order to relax people’s minds and bodies.

Dufrenne discovered Yoga and Sound Healing two years ago when she was in an Indian ashram in Rishikesh called World Peace Yoga. She had arrived there after leaving a stressful job.

“I spent eight years working as a sales director for major American companies such as Amazon. I used to work under great pressure with heavy responsibilities and of course a lot of stress.

“At some point, I realised that I wasn’t meant to live that life any longer. I decided to take a break and I moved to India. From there I discovered Sound Healing during a group session in the ashram where I used to live,” she says.

She says she’ll never forget hearing the singing bowls used in sound healing for the first time.

“The first time I heard it, I immediately fell in love. I was very attracted by the power of the sound and vibration. I cried because I felt a feeling of relief. I understood the healing power of sound vibrations right away through that experience,” Dufrenne tells The Post.

Dufrenne moved to Cambodia in January 2020 and started to work as a yoga teacher and sound therapist full time.

“Now I have a full time job but I dedicate many days per week to providing one on one healing sessions. I also teach Hatha Yoga, Yin Yoga and Vinyasa in addition to the sound therapy. I also do sound baths which is a group form of sound healing,” she says.

Dufrenne explains that Sound Healing is complementary to Yoga but they are different practices. Yoga is dynamic and involves body movement and stretching whereas sound healing is a passive activity focused on relaxation.

She says that sound healing is for one person or a maximum of maybe two people. If there are more than two people then it is properly called a sound bath. Sound baths are less intense but still helpful for entering meditative states and they are typically done with up to 15 to 20 people.

In her studio she has a collection of 16 bowls with Tingshyas bells. This set is from Nepal where the best quality bowls for sound healing – called Full Moon Singing Bowls – are made.

The Full Moon bowls are made by hand on the night of a full moon. Dufrenne says that this enhances them by imbuing their vibrations with moon energy.

These singing bowls are chosen carefully by the sound healers who listen to them in order to find bowls with the best healing properties.

Dufrenne says that the long and deep vibration of the bowls is due to the combination of seven metals: gold, silver, mercury, iron, copper, tin and lead.

She also says different tools can be used to perform sound healing like gongs, tuning forks and even the voice.

“I use singing bowls also known as Himalayan Singing Bowls. So I practice singing bowl sound healing, but there are other kinds,” she says.

When performing a healing session she says she normally starts out by asking her students some questions about how they are feeling.

“First I want the client to feel comfortable and I talk to them to get a sense of their mood and their health,” she explains.

Then she has them lie down on their back or on their belly and she places the singing bowls around them and starts the bowls singing in different combinations by striking them like a bell.

“I begin by creating a sound wall around them to isolate negative or external energy and then I place the bowls around the body in particular locations due to the nature of the chakras and the body organs related to them.

She says she also places the bowls directly on a person’s body depending on the situation and that person’s needs.

“Then I balance their chakras and read their aura. After the session I ask the client about what they experienced and I tell the client about what I observed and give advice on which energies they need to focus on for further healing in their daily life,” she says.

Dufrenne says that according to the training she received in India sound healing works via something called the “law of vibration” which states that everything in the universe moves and vibrates and everything therefore has its own vibrating frequency.

She says that a healthy body vibrates at around 68-72 MHz and that when people are ill or stressed it creates an imbalance in the cells or organs and this makes people vibrate at a frequency of 60 MHz or lower.

Dufrenne believes that by using singing bowls you can increase the vibration frequency in people’s bodies and that this produces beneficial changes by clearing “energy blockages” which facilitates both physical and mental healing.

She says it can reduce stress, stabilises mood, lower blood pressure, improve quality of sleep and treat mental illness.

Dufrenne says she continues to build on her skills by reading books and performing healings on a regular basis as well as by gathering feedback from her clients to better understand what they find most beneficial to them.

And having spent the past two years doing sound healing sessions she has received an ample amount of feedback from clients and it has been overwhelmingly positive.

“People just love how it feels! I have a lot of regular clients. It’s an experience that you have to go through in order to understand it,” she says.

She says that most people who try it end up being repeat customers chiefly because they find it very relaxing, but it’s also a fun and unique experience.

“It takes you deep into yourself. What you will find there – within you – only you will know. It opens up so many possibilities – more than you will ever know,” she says.

Sound Healing Therapy at her studio is $35 for one person and $55 for couples. Sessions at the client’s home start at $55.

For more details, visit her website: https://mindbodycambodia.com/ or check out her Facebook page: @marylauredufrenne.