The Healing Power of Sound: Supporting your Cancer Journey

Rachel Whiteman
38 minutes ago
3 min read

For several years now, I’ve had the privilege of volunteering at Solaris Cancer Care, offering monthly group sound healing sessions for individuals and families on their cancer journey. This work is deeply close to my heart. It is sacred, it is humbling, and above all, it is truly needed.

A cancer diagnosis can be terrifying. The emotional weight, the physical toll, the uncertainty, it can feel like your whole world has turned upside down. That’s why having a place where you feel safe, held, supported, and “normal” matters more than words can express. I feel honoured to help create that space through sound.

Sound healing offers something so many on this journey crave: deep, nourishing relaxation. Relaxation isn’t just a luxury, it’s essential for healing. The stress of illness often keeps the body stuck in a fight-or-flight state. Through sound, we gently activate the vagus nerve, supporting the parasympathetic nervous system, triggering the relaxation response, which is the body’s natural mechanism for rest, digestion, and repair.

Just recently, a beautiful attendee shared with me that her oncologist had recommended sound healing specifically for this reason, to support vagal tone and help the body move into a healing state and homeostasis. My heart was full. To hear this acknowledgment from a medical professional felt like a turning point. It’s a sign that mainstream medicine is finally beginning to understand what many of us in the healing arts have known for years: sound heals.

Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, a pioneering oncologist and author of The Healing Power of Sound, was one of the first to write about the use of sound as a therapeutic support for cancer patients. He understood that healing doesn’t only happen on a physical level, it’s emotional, mental, spiritual, and energetic too.

Yet, despite the clear benefits, the broader medical world still largely measures success through the narrow lens of Western allopathic medicine. A system that is patriarchal, very recent in terms of world history, reductionist, and often focused on masking symptoms rather than addressing root causes. Yes, modern medicine has it's place and can save lives, and I’m grateful for that. However we must also recognise that ancient healing systems, used for thousands of years across every culture on the planet since time began, have sustained human wellbeing long before the first pharmaceutical company existed.

The truth is, many of these traditional modalities, like sound healing, have stood the test of time because they work. They may not be highly profitable, which is perhaps why they’ve been side-lined, but their wisdom runs deep and is effective. Sound, breath, energy, vibration, plant medicines, these are not new. These are the original medicines. They’ve been used by cultures across time and place, precisely because they work. If they didn’t, our ancestors would never have survived.

I’m so encouraged to see bridges being built between science and soul, between medicine and meaning. I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to move toward a more integrated, compassionate model of care, one that sees the whole person, not just the disease.

To everyone who’s navigating a cancer journey: you deserve rest. You deserve to feel safe. You deserve to feel human again. I’m honoured to offer sound as a doorway to that space.

May the wisdom of ancient healing continue to rise and may we all listen with an open heart.

References: