The Biofield: What Sound Really Does to the Body

Philip Orchard
Sep 1
3 min read

I love reading social media posts and watching videos, but sometimes they send me down a rabbit hole. This morning I watched a sound healing session using a tuning fork ball. The practitioner struck each tuning fork, then claimed it could “clear the crown chakra”.

I grimaced. I frowned. I wanted to message her.

You see, sound is a powerful tool. But too often people focus on energies that don’t exist, using beautiful phrases and tools that have their place in meditation. I wanted to ask her: what do you feel when you say that, and how does it really interact with the client’s body?

What the Biofield Really Is

When we look at the science, the body is already surrounded by fields, measurable ones.

The heart and brain create electromagnetic fields, strong enough to be picked up by sensors outside the body.
Cells release tiny flashes of light called biophotons, a by-product of metabolism.
Blood, bones and fascia all carry vibration and sound. Fascia even generates electrical charges when stretched or moved.
The skin shifts in electrical activity depending on stress levels.
The whole body radiates heat and infrared energy.

This is what some people call the biofield. Not mystical, not invisible “blocked chakras”, but real measurable patterns of electricity, light, sound, and vibration.

How Sound Interacts with the Body

This is where sound becomes fascinating. It doesn’t clear chakras, but it does interact deeply with the systems we can measure.

Consonance and resonance: Soundwaves travel through fascia and bone, setting tissues into motion. Some frequencies match the body’s natural rhythms and feel harmonious. Others clash, stirring release.
Dissonance: Not always bad. Sometimes sound shakes up what’s stuck, bringing buried emotion or tension into awareness.
Entrainment: The brain, heart and breath all sync with external rhythms. That’s why a steady gong or drumbeat can guide us into slower, calmer states.
Head–heart coherence: Gentle rhythms encourage the nervous system to settle, improving balance between thought and emotion.
Sonic phonons: At the cellular level, sound creates tiny vibrations that ripple through tissues, influencing fluid flow and cellular communication.

This is the physics of sound. This is the biology of how the body responds. This is the somatic reality of what people actually feel.

What Was Happening With Those Tuning Forks

So, no, the practitioner wasn’t clearing someone’s crown chakra. What she offered was a beautiful meditation tool, one that can help people visualise, relax, and centre themselves. That has value in itself.

But what was really happening to the client when she struck those tuning forks around the head? When a tuning fork vibrates, it sets the air molecules around it into motion. Those soundwaves travel into the client’s ears and skull, partly through the air, partly through bone conduction. The vibration moves into the cranial bones, facial tissue, and fascia, stimulating mechanoreceptors, tiny sensors that respond to pressure and stretch. This can create a sensation of lightness, tingling, or even a shift in pressure in the head.

The client’s nervous system was also responding. Rhythmic tones can help regulate brainwaves, nudging them towards alpha or theta states, which feel calming and dreamlike. The steady pulse can guide breath and heart rhythms into coherence, a state where the body feels more balanced.

At the cellular level, the vibration creates phonons, tiny packets of sound energy, that ripple through tissues and fluids. This may support flow in the fascia and hydration in the extracellular matrix. In other words, the client’s body was literally resonating.