The Hidden Impacts of Sound on Mental Health and Well-Being

 Thought: if sound can make people sick, or mentally unwell. As I live next door to a person who had a mental illness triggered by sound and not in the "it's mildly upsetting to me" but a really severe case of a sweet person with an intellectual disability to a person with behaviors of concern. Could it make you well? I haven’t really looked any further, but I think this is what a lot of new-age and alternative healers are looking at with their meditations.

Research shows that certain sounds can indeed have a negative impact on health. For example, low-frequency noise and infrasound have been linked to symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. This phenomenon, known as the "nocebo effect," is when negative expectations of harmless sounds cause adverse symptoms. Additionally, some sounds can make people very sick, such as in the case of Havana Syndrome, where the physical vibrations of sound caused severe health issues in individuals.

But when they say "trust the science," but we don’t know now who is funding the science and what is being suppressed, it makes sense that we don’t have people in the community who have the thinking skills to see if it's bunk or if there is something to it.

As I know that mental health professionals and doctors for people with mental health issues are increasingly going back to community-based prescriptions, such as park runs, cooking classes, and volunteering in interest groups.

I see a lot of merit in this for the simple reason it makes sense and stops what I see as the over-pathologization of life. Mental illness is very real, but I see that we might be overblowing things, and that helps no one in the end as we need to not cover up emotions with medications; we need to be able to feel them and process them.

I am not saying that all medication is bad—I wouldn’t be here without it—but I think that the lack of trust in the medical system, coupled with social media and the internet, has had to make medical professionals think in a different manner.

We don’t have the god-like trust in doctors we used to, and we are seeing the harm not believing a patient can do, and compounded is the pressure to diagnose disabilities and other neurodiversities. While seeking a diagnosis is great, pressuring people into giving it isn’t great as diagnosis doesn’t equal access and support, and when people realize this, they get angry and vent on social media because they felt they had it but then proceed to self-diagnose. This isn’t great as there are many physical illnesses that present as mental symptoms first, so trust does work both ways.

Self-diagnosis isn’t just rude; it’s dangerous. It often reduces very real mental illnesses and diversities to a cute and quirky personality trait, which harms everyone who has spent the time and money to get a diagnosis. There are symptoms we don’t talk about, and that is how we catch out self-diagnosis, and it does no one any good. Misdiagnosis can lead to inappropriate treatments that may worsen the condition or cause new health problems.

We are also seeing a turn for the better in the younger generations giving up social media and the "underconsumption" trend, being minimalism rebranded. Minimalism, when you get the balance of what you need vs. what you don’t, and buying better quality that will last, and if possible gardening for better quality produce, and even at times swapping. As it was on a podcast that if you need to buy lemons if you’re baking or in Toowoomba mandarins, you don’t have friends. It’s on my list to plant some parsley, basil, and chamomile, as well.

But we need to remember that Google might be a great place to start, but it can get things wrong, and the cases of feeding AI your symptoms are hit and miss as you may not think that pesky cough is important, but it may be all connected, and this is where the clinical communication skills of a doctor or nurse come into play, and even a well-trained support worker at times.

You may not have anxiety; it may be the amount of caffeine you drink. You may not be depressed; you may have a shitty life, and slapping a label on it helps no one as you may not improve the life by working to change it by studying, getting a better job (I know that can be hard), or even moving out of the family home (or back in) or telling that shitty housemate to grow up. Part of overcoming a "shitty life" involves growing up and learning essential skills such as cleaning and getting along with people. These skills can significantly improve your life and help you manage better.

But I am going to look into the ideas behind sound and what they are doing as it makes sense that if one sound can harm, another can heal. I know that there is no such thing as the brown note, but there is anecdotal evidence of sound being used in the ancient world to levitate things into place.