I Have PMDD, and This Sound Healing App Helped Me Have Calm, Less Emotionally Tumultuous Periods

PMDD is a psychological well being situation that impacts about 10 % of all menstruating folks, per the Cleveland Clinic. It is a extreme type of PMS characterised by shifts in temper, anxiousness, power, and ache ranges within the 10 to 14 days main as much as your interval. Medical doctors aren’t precisely positive why it occurs, nevertheless it doubtless has to do with the steep drop within the hormone progesterone within the days earlier than menstruation, affecting your “feel-good” neurotransmitter serotonin, which regulates sleep, temper, and ache, per the Nationwide Institutes of Well being.

The standard therapies for PMDD embody remedy, antidepressants, and life-style adjustments like decreasing stress, getting higher sleep, and consuming a balanced eating regimen with wholesome protein and fat, all of which I’ve carried out. Whereas these strategies do work to maintain my PMDD in test, I nonetheless generally want one thing extra to take the sting off every month (particularly if I am below plenty of stress).

That is the place pure therapeutic modalities come into play. Enter: SOAAK, a sound therapeutic app that simply launched its new frequency composition referred to as “PMS Help,” to assist folks handle the signs of PMS and PMDD. I might by no means tried a pure methodology for my PMDD, however when given the prospect to attempt the app free for 30 days, I jumped on the likelihood.

This is my evaluation of the SOAAK app’s “PMS Help” frequency, the app itself, and whether or not sound therapeutic labored to alleviate my most annoying (and generally debilitating) PMDD signs.

First, what’s SOAAK?

SOAAK applied sciences is a well being tech firm in affiliation RenuYou—an in-person pure clinic in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The corporate began about 9 years in the past when co-founder Henry Penix and firm president Laura Widney mixed their data of know-how and naturopathic therapeutic. When the duo’s in-person shoppers started asking the way to reap the advantages of sound therapeutic remedy within the consolation of their houses, the pair started working with scientists, medical doctors, and app engineers to create the SOAAK app.

Whereas the idea of a sound therapeutic app is pretty new, sound therapeutic remedy itself has existed for generations as a staple of Conventional Japanese drugs. You may typically discover tuning forks, Tibetan singing bowls, or gongs utilized in sound tub therapies, to assist folks calm down and scale back a mess of bodily and psychological well being signs, in response to December 2020 evaluation in Integrative Drugs (Encinitas). Even spa-like music throughout a therapeutic massage, or the sounds of nature, might be thought of sound remedy.

The SOAAK app has 30 completely different sound frequency compositions to select from primarily based in your wants. The most well-liked embody:

• “Sleep properly” (for insomnia)
• “Anti-anxiety”
• “Temper enhance”
• “Focus” (for higher focus through the day)
• “Headache and migraine assist”
• And now, “PMS assist”

Every 20-minute frequency composition might be downloaded and performed at any time, very similar to a meditation. Every composition has quite a lot of tones set at completely different Hertz (Hz)—a measurement of sound. Probably the most generally used frequency in religious therapeutic is 432 Hz, which has additionally been related to lowered coronary heart price and blood stress, per an August 2019 evaluation in Discover: The Journal of Science & Therapeutic. However there are zero to (principally) a trillion completely different Hz frequencies that may be mixed and customised to fulfill your want, in response to Widney.

You’ll be able to take heed to frequency compositions of their unique kind, or layered below sounds of nature or music. Different app options embody:

• A sequence of 21-day applications on varied psychological well being and motivational matters from scientists, physicians, life coaches, and extra. One instance is “Therapeutic Your Inside Little one” with psychotherapist Amy Van Slambrook.
• A well being biometrics part—the place you possibly can join your wearable gadget (like an Apple Watch) to maintain monitor of issues like coronary heart price, coronary heart price variability, sleep cycle, and extra.
• A digital well being concierge—a chat the place you possibly can ask questions concerning the app’s frequencies, applications, and different self-care ideas. This instrument also can advocate frequencies primarily based in your present well being biometrics.
• A gratitude journal—the place you possibly can mirror in your day or expertise with a frequency.
• A twin audio characteristic—which lets you play the frequencies whereas watching a video, listening to a podcast or audiobook, or listening to your personal music.
• A pacesetter board—the place you possibly can “gamify” your sound therapeutic expertise by seeing the way you match up with different high app customers.

SOAAK App — $29.99

• Person-friendly
• Comes with 30 completely different frequencies
• Bluetooth pairing to your Apple Watch
• Can play and pause the frequencies if you want

• Doesn’t checklist the hertz (Hz) frequency info within the app
• Month-to-month price might be dear for some

My 30-day SOAAK app evaluation

I made a decision to begin utilizing SOAAK’s “PMS assist” frequency firstly of the month (my interval often hits on the finish of the month) to get the complete impact earlier than and through that 10-day window.

Once I opened the app on day one, I used to be greeted by my identify on the high, a weekly calendar, and a every day affirmation with the constructive message,”I can adapt to any state of affairs that comes my approach.” (You’ll be able to choose to have every day affirmations despatched to you through electronic mail or textual content, too.) General, I discovered the app very user-friendly and straightforward to navigate. Plus, it simply seems to be high-tech and aesthetically pleasing.

I clicked on the “frequencies” icon on the backside of the web page, and scrolled till I discovered “PMS assist.” The outline of the frequency stated it helps assist “balanced feelings, hormones, ache reduction, and decreased bloating.” As I started to play the unique model of frequency, it gave the impression of I used to be floating by means of outer house, however with decrease, extra grumbling undertones than I might imagined. (It did not sound as high-pitched and flighty because the stress-relief composition, for instance.)

I discovered myself gravitating towards the music model of this frequency—a guitar strumming sound with the frequencies taking part in beneath—which I listened to throughout my lunch break on the primary day (with an alarm set on my cellphone in case I dozed off, in fact).

For the remaining days, I made a decision to both take heed to it at night time or in morning, in mattress with my comfortable sleep masks on. I began by listening to them out loud, however found that sporting headphones presents a extra elevated expertise. Some days, I could not get round to listening to your entire 20 minutes, so it was good that I used to be in a position to pause and play it every time I wished. I acquired into the routine of listening after which logging how I felt afterward within the gratitude journal.

Throughout my “good time” of the month, I discovered that SOAAK’s “PMS assist” frequency was a nice approach to cap off or begin my days. I entered a meditative-like state, the place I used to be conscious, however my mind felt calm and gradual. It felt much like once I take heed to binaural beats—i.e., beats set at two completely different frequencies and recorded utilizing two separate microphones, for a layered impact in every ear— which can have the potential to change brainwave exercise, per the Sleep Basis. (Nevertheless, extra analysis is required to substantiate any well being advantages.)

On some days, “PMS assist” additionally gave me a soothing, head-tingling sensation that I really feel once I watch or take heed to ASMR (a bodily sensation in response to visible or auditory stimuli, additionally referred to as autonomous sensory meridian response, per UCLA Well being). I positively added “PMS assist” to my rotation of stress-free content material that I take heed to regularly, and really feel that it might assist me calm down even once I’m not within the throws of PMDD.

Then got here the true check: the ten days earlier than my interval.

Did SOAAK assist my PMDD signs?

One of many important methods I do know I am headed into that pre-period time is once I begin having repetitive, intrusive ideas. They have an inclination to get caught on a loop, and are sometimes damaging self-talk in nature. When this occurred this month, I turned on “PMS assist,” regardless of the time of day, along with my morning or night time ritual. I even performed it as soon as whereas strolling with my canine, and whereas cleansing my residence.

Listening to the frequency helped my mind instantly deal with one thing else, and the racing thought loop simply…stopped. Even when I attempted to get the ideas going once more, it was tougher to conjure them up. It felt nice to get fast reduction from one in all my most annoying PMDD signs—particularly once I’m below extra stress. I additionally really feel like my anxiousness generally was barely decreased after listening to it spontaneously.

Whereas I would not say “PMS Help” relieved my bodily signs (like cramping, complications, bloating, and fatigue), it did assist take my thoughts off any ache for a short while till any medicines I took, like Advil or Midol, kicked in. (Although some folks could discover ache reduction whereas listening; everybody’s completely different!)

General, I do really feel that SOAAK’s “PMS Help” frequency composition helped me have a calmer, much less emotionally tumultuous time main as much as my interval. It definitely wasn’t a cure-all (I nonetheless use my conventional therapy strategies), nevertheless it did assist, and I consider I can begin utilizing it along side remedy, treatment, and different stress-relieving methods.

This leads me to a bigger query: Does sound therapeutic generally truly work? (Extra on this beneath.)

Does sound therapeutic remedy actually work?

There is not any strong proof to recommend that sound therapeutic remedy can treatment any illness. The research on sound therapeutic remedy for each bodily and psychological well being situations are restricted, have blended outcomes, and sometimes showcase quite a lot of outcomes. That stated, it will probably nonetheless be a useful supplemental remedy along side different clinically backed therapies, particularly to assist promote leisure.

On a broader scale, we do know that our nervous programs reply to sound—for the higher, and generally, for the more severe.

“Our autonomic nervous system has the tendency to reply and co-regulate to the rhythms round us,” says Ellen Vora, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist specializing in ladies’s psychological well being, and creator of The Anatomy of Anxiousness. “This implies, in occasions of stress, our our bodies can decide up and sync with sounds round us—like noisy metropolis life or folks shouting, which have sure sound frequencies—inflicting us to really feel even worse.” These sounds can improve our coronary heart price and even ship our nervous programs into fight-or-flight mode, she provides.

However after we take heed to extra stress-free frequencies, like wind rustling by means of timber, birdsong, ocean waves, or sure music, our coronary heart price also can sync up (and decelerate) with this rhythm, stress-free us, says Dr. Vora. This is also why the sound of issues like singing bowls elicit a relaxing response. Dr. Vora says it might assist us transfer by means of pent-up feelings, or what she calls “emotional constipation.”

In actual fact, a small July 2017 observational examine within the Journal of Proof-Based mostly Complementary & Various Drugs discovered that contributors who listened to a low-frequency, Tibetan singing bowl meditation scored considerably decrease on anxiousness and melancholy scales than previous to listening, suggesting it does have some psychological profit.

Backside line: Sound therapeutic remedy, within the type of sound frequencies, can not essentially treatment or heal you, and extra scientific research are wanted so as to totally perceive its impact on mind chemistry. But when it brings you a way of calm, and helps you higher take care of issues like PMDD or PMS, it is innocent and might be price a attempt, particularly along side care out of your physician.

And remember: In case you’re having depressive ideas, ideas of suicide, or ideas of harming your self or another person, that is thought of a psychological well being emergency that requires skilled care. Name your physician and go to the closest emergency room as quickly as doable. You can too name or textual content “988,” the Nationwide Suicide and Disaster Lifeline, for fast assist.

Is there a future for sound therapeutic remedy?

Sound therapeutic remedy could possibly be the wave (pun meant) of the way forward for holistic well being care. There is not any denying that apps like SOAAK are providing handy and straightforward choices to cease the results of stress and anxiousness in its tracks, and aid you lead a calmer existence. Although we nonetheless have a protracted approach to go in utterly understanding the impact of frequencies on well being and the human physique, I’ve a sense we’ll begin to see increasingly sound remedy apps (and different holistic apps) crop up within the coming years.

Each Penix and Widney say they wish to assist folks “reclaim their well being, and take their care into their very own arms.” Utilizing this app has definitely made me assume extra concerning the methods I can higher maintain myself throughout my 10-day, pre-period part, and reclaim this month-to-month routine.

If you wish to attempt SOAAK

In case you have PMDD, PMS, wish to get higher sleep, or are simply plain curious concerning the results of sound therapeutic, obtain SOAAK right this moment on IOS or Android and begin a seven-day free trial. From there, you possibly can go for a month-to-month subscription of $29.99 monthly, or a yearly subscription at $24.99 monthly (or $300 per 12 months).