Whether you're just listening to it or actually engaging in it yourself, drumming is an experience that affects not just the ears, but also the mind and soul. By engaging the many facets of the human sensory profile, drumming creates what Sayer Ji from GreenMedInfo.com describes as "a feeling of deep connection to self, other, the Earth, and what can only be explained as a kind of ecstatic openness to Life itself."
Beyond this, drumming would seem to enhance feelings of community, especially when done in the presence of, and along with, other people. Tribal in nature, drumming has been around since pretty much forever, which is hardly surprising when you understand its history particularly from a spiritual perspective.
According to Ji, drumming causes everyone who's engaging in it or experiencing it to fall "into sync," often leading to spontaneous manifestations of "deep transcendence and immanence." But the effects of drumming also resonate with our very subsistence as human beings, he also says, harmonizing with what's been "hard-wired into our biological, social and spiritual DNA."
"... even preschool children as young as 2.5 years appear to be born with the ability to synchronize body movements to external acoustic beats when presented in a social context, revealing that drumming is an inborn capability and archetypal social activity," he further contends.
Sound waves contain epigenetic information, meaning they affect us at the cellular level
Keep in mind that insects, bugs, and many other lifeforms are also similarly impacted by drumming, the beats and rhythms of which we now know carry with them epigenetic information – meaning they're biologically active, affecting us at the cellular and DNA level.
In one study looking at wasps and their larvae, researchers found that antennal drumming (AD), meaning when a female "trills her antennae synchronously on the rims of nest cells while feeding prey-liquid to larvae," actually affects how these larvae grow and develop throughout their lives.
"Subjecting gyne-destined brood to simulated AD-frequency vibrations caused them to emerge as adults with reduced fat stores, a worker trait," that study found.
"This suggests that AD influences the larval developmental trajectory by inhibiting a physiological element that is necessary to trigger diapause, a gyne trait."
Humans are similarly impacted by sound waves, which is why some forms of therapy utilize sound to help bring the body back into balance. This type of sound therapy comes in many forms, but the fundamentals are the same: sound affects us all down to our very cellular "blueprints."
Recognizing that drumming can be a powerful de-stressing activity, Joshua Leeds, author of The Power of Sound, uses it to treat patients with conditions that are known to be worsened as a result of stress. Such conditions include childhood autism, irritable bowel syndrome, psoriasis, and chronic pain, among others.
"We do have some compelling evidence from human clinical and observational studies on the power of drumming to affect positive change both physically and psychologically," Ji says, noting that acoustic information plays a powerful biological role in modulating physiological processes inside the body, both on a micro and macro scale.
"Taking into account the beneficial evolutionary role that drumming likely performed in human history and prehistory, as well as the new scientific research confirming its psychosocial and physiological health benefits, we hope that it will be increasingly looked at as a positive medical, social and psychospiritual intervention," he adds.
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