A sound bath is a modern wellness and meditative practice in which participants lie down and are "bathed" in the sustained tones and vibrations of instruments such as gongs, metal and crystal singing bowls, tuning forks, chimes and the human voice, with the aim of inducing deep relaxation, meditative states and a sense of restoration. The participants are passive: they rest, often with eyes closed, while a practitioner plays the instruments to produce a continuous wash of overlapping resonant sound, and the experience is valued for the calm, the release of tension, and the altered, absorbed states of mind it can produce. It has become a popular offering in the contemporary wellness and yoga scene, presented as a form of "sound healing" and of accessible group meditation.
The practice is modern in its packaging but draws on much older uses of sustained and resonant sound in religious and contemplative life, the chanting, bells, gongs and singing bowls of Buddhist and Hindu practice, and the widespread use of drone and repetition to focus attention and induce trance. Its proponents make claims, sometimes framed in terms of vibration, frequency and the "tuning" of the body's energies, that go well beyond what evidence supports; there is some modest research suggesting that sound-based relaxation sessions can reduce reported tension and anxiety, plausibly through ordinary mechanisms of relaxation and focused attention, but the stronger claims of physical "healing" through specific frequencies are not scientifically established. Understood simply as a form of guided deep relaxation and passive group meditation using immersive sound, the sound bath is a benign and often valued modern contemplative practice, and it illustrates the broader contemporary drawing of traditional contemplative techniques into secular therapeutic settings.