Let the noise wash over you and relieve anxiety and boost wellness

Gong baths do not involve a bath in the traditional sense. You don’t get wet for a start. You get bathed in sound. Christine Manby tries out a DIY home version

(Tom Ford)

I’ve been trying to get myself to a gong bath for quite a while now but it seemed that every time I managed to get one in the diary, something else would crop up. When the planets finally did align so that I was actually free to attend a gong bath and duly handed over my credit card details, I received an email less than five minutes later telling me it had been cancelled. A message from the universe, perhaps? And then came Covid-19…

Gong baths, for the uninitiated, do not involve a bath in the traditional sense. You don’t get wet. You get bathed in sound. A gong practitioner plays a gong or singing bowls while bathers practise slow yoga moves or just hang out on a yoga mat under a blanket and let the noise wash over them. It’s an ancient form of sound therapy that’s become increasingly popular with modern wellness seekers, promising as it does relief from stress, pain and anxiety, and a boost to the immune system as the gong’s vibrations are echoed in the body.

But the idea of other people’s bare feet, yoga mats and communal blankets seems far from relaxing now. It’s hard to imagine a time in the foreseeable future when I wouldn’t rather lick the handrails on a Northern line Tube carriage than risk that sort of exposure again. So is a gong bath something you can do at home?