What Is Vibrational Energy?

By Marney A. White for Healthline.

You are a living energy field. Your body is composed of energy-producing particles, each of which is in constant motion. So, like everything and everyone else in the universe, you are vibrating and creating energy.

The field of vibrational medicine, sometimes called energy medicine, seeks to use the vibrational energy generated by and around your body to optimize your health.

To many people, the concept of energy fields in the body may sound more spiritual than medicinal.

More research must be done to understand how electrical and magnetic energy in the body stimulate chemical processes. But there’s growing evidence that these energies can be used to influence your health outcomes.

Here’s what we know so far.

What Do We Know About Vibrations?

Vibrations are a kind of rhythm. Rhythms happen on a grand scale, like seasonal changes and tidal patterns. They also happen within your body.

Heartbeats, breathing rates, and circadian rhythms are examples of physiological rhythms we can see, feel, and measure.

But there are much smaller vibrations happening in your body, too. Inside each one of your cells, molecules vibrate at characteristic rates.

Using atomic force microscopes, researchers have detected vibrations on the nanoscale — much smaller than 1/1000^th the diameter of a single human hair.

These vibrations generate electromagnetic energy waves. Researchers have found that vibrations and the electromagnetic energy associated with them cause changes in your cells, which can then affect how your body functions.

Different molecules vibrate at different rates — and those rates can speed up or slow down if conditions around the molecules change.

Temperature, for example, can change the speed of a molecule’s vibration.

What’s the Connection Between Thoughts, Behaviors, and Vibrations? 

Researchers have known for a long time that thoughts and behaviors affect the rhythms in your body.

For example, anxious thoughts trigger the release of stress hormones that stimulate your heart rate to speed up or slow down. The sound vibrations of music, likewise, affect thoughts, emotions, and body systems.

Vibrational energy experts think our behaviors and thoughts can also alter much smaller rhythms.

Proponents believe it’s possible to speed up or slow down the vibrations that occur at the cellular and atomic levels by changing our thoughts, behaviors — and even our surroundings.

Changing those nanovibrations, it is thought, could ripple outward, affecting our mental state and physical health.

What Are the Benefits of Vibrational Energy?

A growing body of research suggests that there’s a strong connection between your mind and your body.

It isn’t yet understood how vibrational energy fits into the relationship between the two. Proponents think you may be able to change your body’s vibrations to:

• alter your mood
• improve your physical health
• help you achieve your goals and intentions

Vibrational energy experts claim that certain emotions and thought patterns, such as joy, peace, and acceptance, create high frequency vibrations, while other feelings and mindsets (such as anger, despair, and fear) vibrate at a lower rate.

There isn’t much scientific evidence to support this correlation. But there is plenty of evidence linking positive emotions and thinking patterns to better health and greater goal achievement.

Researchers are finding that vibrations of many kinds — electromagnetic, sound, and light — can be used to encourage healing and stimulate growth in the body.

How Can I Change My Vibrational Energy?

Vibrational energy experts recommend several strategies for elevating the vibrations in your body and your life.

Although more research needs to be done to understand whether and how these practices impact vibrational energy, many of the recommended practices are known to provide important health benefits.

Breath Work

Proponents say rhythmic deep breathing is a good way to realign your vibrational energy.

Research suggests that slow, controlled breathing can calm your heart rate and stimulate the areas of your brain that influence:

• comfort
• relaxation
• emotional control
• well-being

Meditation

Meditation generally involves comfortably sitting or lying down in a quiet zone, focusing your attention on body sensations or on a specified word or object, and allowing your responses to change as you meditate.

Studies have suggested that the vibrations produced during the rhythmic chanting of the syllable “om” temporarily deactivate the amygdala and other brain structures involved in processing emotion.

Research also suggests that meditation may:

• change your blood pressure
• reduce your pain sensitivity
• affect your mood

It’s also thought that vibrational energy may help alleviate the symptoms of:

• irritable bowel syndrome
• insomnia
• anxiety
• depression

Gratitude

Taking time to notice and appreciate what is good in your life is often recommended as a way to raise your vibrations.

Health experts say intentionally and regularly expressing gratitude can:

• enhance your psychological well-being
• lower stress
• make you more inclined to participate in activities that promote your physical health

Generosity

Generosity is thought to raise your vibrational energy because it’s considered a pro-social behavior.

In addition to its potential effects on your vibrational energy, there’s evidence generosity could help you live longer.

A 2013 study found that generosity may prolong your life by shielding you from the harmful effects of stress.

Diet

Vibrational energy proponents say it’s important to eat foods that contain higher energy levels.

Keep in mind that no research has been done to quantify vibrations in food groups and that many of these foods are simply valuable for their associated health benefits.

Vibrational energy advocates propose that a diet rich in the following foods, which are linked to numerous health benefits, can increase vibrational energy:

• leafy green vegetables
• fresh fruits
• legumes
• minimally processed grains
• honey
• spring water
• herbal teas

Vibrational energy advocates also suggest that the following foods are not considered to have any valuable vibrational energy and may also have negative impacts on your health:

• meat
• fish
• poultry
• alcohol
• dairy
• fried foods
• highly processed foods

Outdoor Immersion

To raise or reset your vibrational energy, get out into nature as often as you can.

Exposure to natural sound waves, light waves, negative ions, and green spaces are all believed to benefit you.

Multiple studies have found that interacting with nature:

• lowers stress
• lowers blood pressure
• reduces fatigue
• reduces cortisol levels
• may lower your risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases

A walk in the woods or a picnic beside a high-energy waterfall is also likely to increase your cognitive functioning and your sense of well-being.

Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, and Reiki

These three modalities are considered energy therapies. This means that a trained therapist can use a hands-on approach to move the energy in your body (called your biofields) to improve your health.

Typically used with other conventional medical treatments, these therapies have been part of cancer treatment for decades.

Vibrational energy specialists recommend them for correcting the flow of the energy in and around your body.

Yoga

Yoga unites the mind-body benefits of breathing, meditation, and rhythmic movement.

Little research has measured the effects of yoga on your vibrational energy.

But numerous studies show that regularly practicing rhythmic yoga poses increases the size, function, and connectivity of brain structures devoted to your cognitive abilities.

Yoga has also been shown to:

• improve blood sugar levels
• aid in recovery from muscle and bone problems
• improve cardiovascular health
• alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression

Healthy Relationships

Energy specialists agree that healthy relationships raise your vibrations, while conflict has the opposite effect.

The National Institutes of Health reports that your relationships have a “powerful effect” on your health.

If you want to raise your vibe, lower your stress levels, and live a longer, healthier life, it’s important to develop a network of relationships.

You need friends, family members, neighbors, colleagues, and other social connections to:

• share your interests
• provide brain-stimulating conversations
• imbue your life with a sense of belonging and self-worth

Are There Alternatives to Vibrational Energy?

In addition to the activities recommended above, you may want to learn more about other integrative and complementary alternative medical therapies.

Each of these therapies is based in part on improving the flow of energy through your mind and body:

• acupuncture
• Ayurvedic medicine
• chakra therapy
• qi gong
• polarity therapy
• pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) therapy
• grounding

When Should I See a Doctor?

Raising your vibrational energy may provide positive health benefits, but it shouldn’t be used on its own to treat mental or physical health conditions.

If you’re experiencing physical, mental, or emotional symptoms that are interfering with your quality of life, it’s important to seek conventional treatments alongside integrative or complementary therapies.

Talk to a healthcare provider about how to blend vibrational energy therapies with targeted medical treatment so you can relieve your symptoms and treat any underlying health issues.

The Takeaway

The vibrations happening at the molecular level in your body may be tiny, but it could turn out that they have a seismic effect on your health.

The field of energy medicine is growing. If you want to enrich your understanding of the ways energy and vibration influence your health, reach out to an integrative medicine specialist in your area.

While there isn’t much research to explain the benefits and drawbacks of vibrational energy, many of the techniques associated with vibrational energy therapy provide well-researched health benefits.

Deep breathing, meditation, yoga, and meditation may boost your vibrational energy. Interacting with nature, eating a good diet, developing healthy relationships, and practicing gratitude and generosity can also help.

If you want to work with a health professional to elevate your vibe, a Reiki or Therapeutic Touch practitioner might be good options.