For City AM The Magazine, Autumn edition, Adam Bloodworth explores the ways real-world sound is transforming the wellness industry
I’m lying on my back with my eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the Outer Hebrides. I can hear water trickling into rock pools and great thunderous waves. I couldn’t feel further away from my desk in London. But I’m not really on some far-flung remote isle: I’m having a newfangled wellness experience in a posh spa in Edinburgh.
The Swell Studio at the Kimpton Charlotte Square Hotel claims to be the world’s first dedicated “sound wellness” studio. Stressed workers can leave the office and, minutes later, be experiencing the sounds of Scotland’s Western Isles. Cuddled up under a duvet with an eye mask and headphones on, I was about 30 seconds away from the city’s prestigious Charlotte Square, home to Scotland’s First Minister.
Sound is having a moment. Not just music but the acknowledgement of sound in its broadest sense. People are exploring the effects of the daily soundscapes we experience, from bird noises to the soundtrack of Scottish islands, and how they can make us feel better. The Swell studio is one of dozens of newfangled ways the luxury wellness space is pivoting to make us think – and listen – to the broader benefits of noise.
“Sound is experiencing a surge in popularity in the luxury wellness space, which is evident by the rise in the use of music during spa treatments, and events such as sound baths,” says psychologist Dr Sarah Chandler. “More and more people are beginning to realise the impact sound can have on them, and are experimenting with it.”
A good starting point to understand where the trend came from is the contrarian-sounding drive for silence. On Tiktok, #silentwalk has been trending and there is a rise in demand for quiet areas in public spaces, on trains and in nature. “Increasing numbers of people are using noise-cancelling devices to help them focus or to manage anxiety, which shows that too much noise, or noises we do not like, can have a damaging effect on us,” says Chandler.
Sound and luxury wellness: lately, sonic healing techniques have broken through into the public consciousness
The ‘Vibe Lounge’ at Y Spa in Wyboston has installed “sound loungers”, which combine sound with vibrations. Like at the Swell studio, you lie in a comfy lounger, pop on a pair of headphones, throw a rug over your legs and try to reach that elusive Zen state. “Soothing” sound waves and “zero-gravity comfort” create a multi-sensory experience that helps you “melt away stress,” according to the sales pitch.
Liverpool’s Municipal Hotel & Spa’s sonic bathing experience invites guests to float in a swimming pool on lilos with headphones on. They experience a live sound bath while the undulations of the water act as the gently percussive second fiddle. The gimmick, which sets you back £150, has racked up over two million views on Tiktok. “My problem would be I’d forget I’m in a pool and roll over,” one user wrote, racking up more than 7,000 likes. “Went to book it but didn’t want to remortgage my house,” wrote someone else.
Equally Insta-friendly but less precarious is the Bingham Riverhouse’s sonic punt. The fancy hotel in Richmond invites guests to book a massage with a twist: the therapist spends part of their time massaging, and part of their time playing a Tibetan singing bowl placed on the guest’s back, allowing the resonant tones to flow through you.
It feels strange having a heavy item placed on my back. For newbies like me, therapists at the Bingham strike the healing bowl four times at the beginning of the treatment and four times at the end, increasing the number as you become more accustomed. The idea is that the massage stimulates the parasympathetic system while the vibrations encourage your muscles to relax. It’s a potent experience; apparently some people leave the massage and start crying because of the emotional release, according to my therapist.
“The sound healing element shifts the client out of the stress response into a rest and digest response,” says Sama Trinder, founder of the Bhuti wellness programme at the hotel. “Then they can reap the benefits of the treatment.”
Third Space, the luxury gym setting Londoners back £280 per month (which doubled its profits this month due to a membership surge), is going one step further, aligning their sound therapy with longevity. Jump on the catchily-named ‘vibroacoustic’ therapy bed and the low-frequency sound vibrations travel through the body, “stimulating cells, tissues and the nervous system,” with the experience designed to “synchronise the body and mind.”
Intrigued, I go to the Canary Wharf Third Space to try it myself. Sophia, my therapist, pulls the curtain so I can’t hear the changing rooms a few metres away, decorates me with headphones and a proper eye mask so I’m in complete darkness, and tilts my chair back so my head is lower than my waist. The chair vibrates at different speeds to match the sounds on my headphones, my head tingles, and my body feels great. This is quite something: if Swell reckons it was the first, this is sound wellness 2.0.
“We have always excelled at fitness [but] more recently we are responding to the need for… quiet practices that support rest and recovery,” says Third Space’s head of group exercise Gillian Reeves.
The best thing about sound healing is you don’t have to be ‘good’ at it. You simply show up and settle into stillness
You can see this increased demand across the country, with sound baths and gong baths now fairly common meditative practices. While this may all seem very 2025, sound healing is actually an ancient practice that’s been around in one form or another for thousands of years. “Hippocrates used sound healing as far back as 400 BC,” says Trinder.
Lately, though, one of the most popular sound healing techniques has broken through into the public consciousness: ASMR. While millions were stuck at home during the pandemic, they donned headphones, closed their eyes and listened to the sounds of people playing with everyday items. Running their fingers across a microphone, eating food or simply talking in a breathy manner, emphasising the sound of a mouth opening and closing with the delivery of every word. And it’s infiltrating the wellness space: Kat Romero wrote a piece for City AM last year entitled “ASMR is coming to a spa near you.”
Research suggests between 10 and 20 per cent of Brits experience a “tingling” sensation when listening to ASMR. “For years we’ve spoken about food, yoga, meditation, movement… but sound is now scientifically proven to impact… the body,” says Trinder. A recent study from Kyoto University showed how sound waves can directly influence the way cells behave. “Not only do your brain and ears perceive it, but your cells may also… Its capacity to induce physiological responses at the cell level is only just beginning to be understood.”
Perhaps the most exciting part is that sound wellness is available to us all. Like breathwork or meditation, anyone can have a go. “You don’t have to be ‘good’ at it,” says Reeves from Third Space. “You simply need to show up and settle into stillness.”
I checked out of the Kimpton in Edinburgh and hired a car. Five hours later, I was lying on a bench in the September sun on The Isle of Lewis with my eyes closed. Just like my experience at the Kimpton’s spa, I could hear the sound of the water trickling into rock pools and the great thunderous waves. Perhaps the best sound experiences are free.
Go to Kimptoncharlottesquare.com to book the Swell Suite, thirdspace.london to book the vibroacoustic chair or binghamriverhouse.com to book a healing bowl massage