I, for one, am partial to a bath: what’s not to love about a dim room, candles and nary an electronic device in sight?

But a wellness trend that has emerged in recent years makes soaking in tepid water seem quaint: increasingly, people are paying to be “bathed” in sound.

Social media is awash with clips of sound baths, where participants – for a fee – lie on yoga mats, hang in cocoons or float on inflatable pool loungers while berobed practitioners gently ring chimes and bang gongs for relaxation.

Online interest in these experiences has risen exponentially in the last decade. Some are available outside in places like Sydney Harbour, where you can be “rocked gently by the tide” while blindfolded. High-end wellness clubs, meanwhile, boast of surround-sound chambers complete with subwoofers.

The purpose, according to the marketing copy for such classes, is to “soothe and calm your nervous system” with sounds that will “penetrate every cell in your body”, while specific frequencies are purported to promote “healing”.

Singing bowls – metal or crystal bells that produce a shimmering timbre when struck or brushed – produce “cosmic sound” claimed to improve “chronic symptoms like pain, fatigue, anxiety, or emotional overwhelm”. But do any of these claims ring true?

Can sound baths really relax us?

“There’s a rich field of music psychology that’s all about the impacts of different types of sounds on human psychology and human physiology,” says Dr Vince Polito, a senior lecturer in the........

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