music as medicine
Ever wondered why listening to sounds as ordinary and mundane as the tweeting of birds, the rustling of leaves, or the sound of waves, can bring you a sense of peace and quiet? You may not fully realize just how, but sound can help you in more ways than one. sona taps into this very remedial power of music.
What is Sona, you ask? Simply put, it is a music streaming application that plays and curates neuroscience-based calming music for anxiety, sleep, stress and other mental health-related conditions. Sona is more than just a regular sleep music app. Award-winning composers from around the world have come together to produce original content for the app, using a music composition formula that has been shown to have ‘meditative effects’ on the brain by increasing alpha & theta brain waves.
Neal Sarin - the founder of sona - is a music executive and cross-continental record producer turned entrepreneur. Fascinated by the medicinal benefits of music, he sought out to harness the power of sound as a therapeutic treatment for the people who suffer from ailments related to mental health, including cardiovascular and psychiatric disease.
In collaboration with the Global Head of Neuroscience Research at Nielsen neuroscience, a study was conducted to see if sona could effectively produce calming music for stress. Participants were asked to listen to music on the sona app for 10 minutes. Soon after, reduced levels of stress were reported, along with increased alpha & theta brain waves.
Neal believes that as a culture, we tend to overlook the power that sound has to help us unwind and revive our senses. The benefits of ‘restorative music’, as he names it, are yet to be fully explored by the world, and sona has taken it upon itself to popularize this kind of music.
sona is available worldwide on the Apple App store and Google Play store. By integrating technology into a digital music therapy device, sona has broadened the horizons to make mental health more accessible to the public. We can now easily stream restorative, calming music for anxiety, stress and sleep-related ailments exclusively on the sona app. Download here.
