This year, more than any other, it has become incredibly important to emphasize the importance of wellness, spirituality, and taking care of one’s mental health. People around the world are seeking new strategies to prioritize mental wellness, create calm environments at home, and stay healthy and sane as the world around us changes daily. Luckily, international wellness practitioner and Sound Bath Healing instructor Ana Netanel has incredible insight and advice to help others maintain a sense of inner peace, calmness, and spiritual alignment as we navigate through the ramifications of COVID-19.
Ana specializes in the restorative and healing power of sound frequency and vibration. With over 20 years of experience studying, guiding, and teaching Sound Healing, Sound Baths, Kundalini Yoga and Meditation, her approach is personal, empowering, and uplifting.
Ana has shared Sound Healing with many celebrities, and during quarantine, she and her client Karrueche Tran co-hosed Instagram Live Sound Bath sessions every Sunday for both of their followers. Ana has also taught the likes of Tori Spelling, Dean McDermott, The Doors’ guitarist Robby Kreiger, actors Calum Best, Rob Heaps, Peter Gadiot, and singer Maejor, music producer and long-time collaborator with Justin Bieber.
In this exclusive interview we spoke to Ana about her experiences with Sound Bath Healing, her mission behind her work and she shares tips for living a healthy lifestyle as well as how to use sound to reduce stress and anxiety.
What is sound healing and what are some of the ways it is used to improve mental, physical, and emotional health?
Sound Healing is an acoustic sound journey using specific frequencies that relax the body, clear the subconscious, calm the mind, and activate your body’s natural healing systems. Sound Healing is so effective because it influences our emotional bodies as well as our physical bodies. Different sound vibrations interact with our physical and energetic bodies in beneficial ways. These ways include activating higher states of consciousness, unlocking blocked emotions, relieving anxiety and stress, inducing complete relaxation, promoting deep meditation, heightening clarity, relieving insomnia, decreasing depression, normalizing blood pressure, relieving physical pain, and releasing emotional trauma.
What instruments are typically used for sound healing?
A variety of different tools and instruments are used in a sound bath. I typically use planetary tuned gongs, crystal singing bowls, Tibetan bowls, and more!
How did you end up practicing Sound Healing?
I ended up practicing sound healing due to a tragic event that sparked my desire to learn more about health and wellness. At an early age, my grandmother Elise, who I was very close to, was diagnosed with leukemia. Watching her go through that I began to get more into health and wellness and look for other healing processes. My mother also started one of the first day spas in Florida and I began helping her find healing modalities for her center.
How would you define wellness and what inspired your interest in wellness?
Wellness to me has three parts: body, mind, and spirit. When these three are in balance and thriving that is when wellness is achieved. I feel it’s an ongoing process, choosing what feels good and helps you get better, stronger, more relaxed, what makes you happy. Every choice you make creates your wellness. I got into it because I just wanted to help people feel better.
How do you practice wellness in your daily life?
I practice wellness in my daily life with every choice I make, I choose to live the best life ever. This means that I practice gratitude, I eat healthily, I walk on the beach, I love being in nature. I listen to high vibrational music. I also light candles. It’s the little things that add up to feeling good and really elevate your spirituality.
What is your mission with your Sound Healing practice?
My mission is to help people relax and heal so they can show up fully in their lives. My overall vision is to create a wellness community where people feel safe, supported, and uplifted so they can heal deeply and bring that healing vibration into their community. I’m ultimately am hoping to create a global healing community.
What is your goal when working with your clients?
My goal is to help my clients heal past traumas, relieve stress and anxiety, and let go of anything that no longer serves them, so they can live the best life ever. I tune into their individual needs and create custom sound healing based on their goals. Sound bath healing helps to achieve all of these goals.
How do crystals amplify the experience of sound bath healing?
Combining crystals with the sound bath healing amplifies the overall experience. Crystals have many different healing properties and when combined it further facilitates the healing process and makes it even stronger. Some people even use crystal bowls for sound healing in order to intensify the experience.
How is sound healing different from music therapy?
Both sound healing and music therapy use sound as a healing method. However, music therapy bases its protocols on what is already known about music’s structure and rhythm to engage a client in making music to address a specific outcome related to health. Sound healing uses music to guide healing. Its protocols are not based just on the process of music listening or the creation of music. It’s focused on locating and creating specific frequencies, which may be unique to the individual, that can then be directed internally to facilitate healing. Sound healing is a much more spiritual process that requires looking internally.
What some healthy lifestyle recommendations or tips you would give to someone?
Make small choices that make you happy. Choose to feel good. Meditate, feel grateful, and focus on all the positives in life.
Do you have a tip you can share for an easy way that people can use music or sound at home to relieve stress or anxiety?
I have a sound healing album that I recommend. There are two tracks. One is a sound bath experience that you can fall asleep to. The other track is ho’opono pono, a Hawaiian forgiveness prayer.
What is something people may not know about you?
I was born in Romania, moved to Queens, NYC when I was 5, and grew up in South Florida. I moved to LA 10 years ago from Kauai, Hawaii’s Garden Island. I also play djembe.