Dr. Hans Selye, known as "the father of stress," was an endocrinologist in 1950s who researched the response of organisms to stress. He determined that stress is the underlying cause of all illnesses and dis-ease. His research was taken a step further by Dr. Herbert Benson.

Dr. Benson of Harvard's Mind Body Institute has studied stress reduction for 35 years. He found that stress causes physical and emotional blockages and concluded that stress reduction was essential to creating health. He coined the phrase "relaxation response" and defines this as "a physical state of deep rest characterized by decreased heart rate, blood pressure and muscle tension, that changes the physical and emotional responses to stress." He also found that regular prompting of the relaxation response is an effective treatment for a wide range of stress-related disorders. In fact, to the extent that any disease is caused or made worse by stress, the relaxation response is essential to healing it.

Stress-related disorders are problems, both emotional and physical, that have been studied and determined to be either caused by or exacerbated by stress. Though not yet scientifically documented, but rapidly becoming understood by many professionals in the natural health care industry, stress is the root cause of all illnesses. One's perception of a situation or event as being stressful can be altered by singing bowl therapy. Because the singing bowls evoke a relaxation response, this form of therapy can have a profound healing influence on highly stressed people.

The sound travels first to the ear and into the brain to quickly change brainwave patterns from beta (waking state) to alpha/theta, where brain hemisphere synchronization can be obtained. In his book, "Thresholds of the Mind," author Bill Harris discusses how human brains generally live in an unbalanced state that creates stress. He relates that in virtually all people, the two halves of the brain are "lateralized." Brain lateralization means that the two hemispheres are not working in a synchronized, balanced state. The greater the lateralization, the greater the feelings of separation, fear, stress, anxiety, and isolation, which are the deeply rooted causes of physical and emotional disease. In its extreme form, a lateralized, unbalanced brain results in behavior commonly described as "dysfunctional" or addictive. The more the two halves of the brain are retrained to be synchronized, (increase in communication and therefore work in a balanced state), the more good health returns, and creativity, productivity, learning, and memory abilities increase.

It is a combination of the sound of the bowl through the ear, over the eardrum, and into the brain and the vibration of the bowl through the flesh of the body that causes the harmonizing, de-stressing effect of the bowls. The bowl practitioner taps the bowls in specific intervals and makes them sing with a tool rubbed along the edge of the bowl, creating entrancing energy. Each bowl will vibrate and sing a different predominate note from the music scale A, B, C, D, E, F, or G. Each note is coordinated with a specific chakra. Each chakra is directly associated with a certain endocrine gland. Further benefit from the bowls is received via the chakra system and then directly into the endocrine system. This causes balancing of the endocrine glands, which affect every body function.