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Recently, in the name of research, I found myself on a waterbed for the first time since elementary school. I put on a set of headphones, and the bed began to pulse in sync with the hypnotic, repetitive sounds blasting into my ears. My entire body was vibrating like the floor of a nightclub.
As the tones began to vary, my mind went elsewhere, everywhere, nowhere. When I awoke 40 blissful minutes later, I certainly felt like my molecules had been rearranged. “A spa treatment for your DNA” is the tagline for Quantum Clinic, a year-old wellness center in Los Angeles’s Frogtown neighborhood. The minimalist space may look like a Scandinavian luxury spa, but there are no mani-pedis here: Instead, they offer sound- and vibration-based experiences they call “frequency therapy”—treatments that purport to start at the subatomic level.
Sound waves like the ones I experienced, and their electromagnetic counterparts, are increasingly being touted in the alternative wellness world as restoratives for body, mind, and spirit. While many influencers and entrepreneurs are making claims that mainstream science hasn’t yet backed, the proposition is intriguing: Change your vibe, change your life.
The premise builds off the idea that certain frequencies (speeds measured in wave cycles per second, or hertz) of sound, light, or electromagnetic energy may be biologically beneficial. “Frequency-specific microcurrent therapy,” for example, says Adrian Jacques H. Ambrose, MD, MPH, MBA, a chief clinical integration officer in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University, “is a type of treatment that uses low-level electrical currents to stimulate healing in the body. It is based on the principle that different frequencies of electrical current can have specific effects on various tissues and conditions.” However, Ambrose cautions, “there is a significant dearth of high-quality studies to verify the claims of these frequency therapies.” The research that has been done doesn’t apply to what places like Quantum Clinic are offering, and even scientists immersed in the field admit that it’s hard to explain why the reported effects occur. “People have been, for decades, finding electromagnetic fields that do stuff in biology,” says Clarice Aiello, PhD, a former UCLA biologist who now runs the quantum-biology nonprofit research organization QuBiT Lab. “There is very little mechanistic understanding of how those things play out.” Nevertheless, various types of waves—light, sound, and electromagnetic—are increasingly being utilized in mainstream medicine, from ultrasound therapy to laser surgery. There’s even a flexible, electromagnetic field (EMF)–emitting helmet used to treat brain tumors.
In the broader sense, this kind of treatment has been part of the alternative health playbook all along. Sound bathing, for example—the practice of listening to (and feeling) various tones—has migrated from fringe yoga studios to hotel spas, with research on singing bowls in particular supporting claims of diminished tension, anger, and fatigue.
Lately, the trend has trickled down to the direct-to-consumer gadgets and potions of Instagram, like one skin-care brand, BioQuantum, that purports to contain “specific frequencies that activate the DNA.” Why stop at forehead wrinkles when you might rouse the third eye behind them? A whistle pendant called the LoveTuner claims to allow the wearer to blow a tone at 528 hertz, known in New Age parlance as the frequency of love. (The necklace, which sounds like a one-note harmonica, was purloined by my six-year-old before I had the chance to spend much time with it, though perhaps that incident validates its premise.)
Techies might appreciate the Sensate, a heavy stone-shaped pendant that claims to stimulate the vagus nerve (the master regulator of the parasympathetic, or “rest and digest,” nervous system) by vibrating at frequencies the company says send the body a signal of safety. The Sensate rests on the breastbone—the vagus nerve runs from the nape of your neck toward the thorax—where it creates a physical sensation akin to that of snuggling with a purring cat. Company founder Stefan Chmelik says that during the pandemic, he came to think that people urgently needed a tool to shift their nervous systems out of fight-or-flight. Mindfulness, schmindfulness: “The only people who can successfully meditate are the ones who don’t need to,” he says. The Sensate is supposed to do the job in 10 minutes, no mantras or mudras required. (I can confirm that the device served as a swift and potent chill pill after a particularly stressful trip through airport security.)
Perhaps the most mysterious gadget to have attained influencer saturation is the Healy—a German-engineered clip-on device the size of a saltine that the company says delivers sets of electrical microcurrents or pulsed EMFs when synced with an app. It offers hundreds of programs designed to address everything from the thyroid to hair follicles to sciatica. (These claims haven’t been evaluated in peer-reviewed journals; the device has FDA clearance to market itself for pain relief, but not FDA approval.) Says Aiello: “There are a lot of weird, more Yoda-like claims out there…. Anything that sells itself as ‘quantum healing’ is BS, I think.”
However (or whether) it may work, the Healy does indirectly address a key aspect of the mental health crisis, which is the erosion of community. To have a Healy is to connect to a fanatical fan base, if for no other reason than to figure out how to use it. Soon after obtaining mine, I was added to several WhatsApp groups and onboarded by a mentor in Ibiza, a fellow mom who leads “wild feminine awakening” retreats and who texts me regularly to check in. I ran a sequence of Healy programs for 28 days alongside 900 other people from around the world who, in a chat thread, shared updates about their vivid dreams, posted playlists, and invited me to visit them in Buenos Aires. Try asking that of your Fitbit.
All of this aside, the central mystery remains: How, exactly, do various kinds of waves influence what your body does? “The problem is that sometimes the answers run well beyond where the science is…and because we don’t understand it, it’s very difficult to establish proper protocols in the experiments,” says Johnjoe McFadden, PhD, professor of molecular genetics at the University of Surrey, whose research focuses on EMFs, the brain, and consciousness, including the potential role of EMFs in treating neurological disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The mysterious nature of nonphysical treatment, McFadden explains, makes it a hard sell for the science establishment. “When I first expressed interest in working with consciousness, people said, ‘You’ve gone mad.’… There’s the whole spectrum of stuff that is from the wacky to very sound science.”
In any case, the “frequency treatment” wellness trend appears to be more about prevention—or, in biohacker-speak, optimization—than dramatic cures. And entirely pedestrian, low-tech sources of beneficial wavelengths may be more accessible than we realize: “Forest bathing,” for instance, immerses the body in a veritable symphony of sonic vibrations; the practice of taking in natural sunlight at dawn or dusk can aid the body’s circadian signaling processes. These approaches may be in favor among TikTok trendsetters, but they’re also the subjects of studies of physical and emotional health. In other words, perhaps if we more closely followed the habits and rhythms of our ancestors, we might not need all these devices. My new self-care routine? You’ll find me alone in the woods, staring off into the sunset.