Chakra Tones:

Using Vocal Toning to Open and Balance Your Chakras

What Are Chakras?

Energy flows through the chakra system in two ways. First, it flows up and down along the central channel, connecting the chakras. Second, it flows horizontally, in an exchange of energy with the cosmos.

Chakras can become blocked or imbalanced. This has a significant impact on the entire energy system. ((To learn more about chakra blockages, go here.)

Vocal toning the chakras is a powerful way to help restore balance and flow to your chakra system.

Using Chakra Tones to Balance Your Chakra System

"Toning" is using the voice specifically as a healing instrument. It's not chanting or singing. In toning you create a drawn-out vowel sound or syllable. It's just a sound, rather than a word. To do it, you pick a note and hold it for a while, letting the vibration of the sound resonate in your body.

Toning like this can help your body or your energy resonate at a healthy vibration, helping it get "back into tune." Your voice also powerfully carries your intentions. When you set your intention for healing, toning delivers that healing energy with great effectiveness.

Using your voice to sound the chakra tones can help to restore balance and flow to the chakra system.

Beyond being good for your health, vocal toning the chakras is also very enjoyable. It creates a vibration deep within the body that is very soothing. At the same time, it brings greater awareness of the body, both its physical and subtle aspects.

It's one of my favorite ways to work with the energy of my chakras--I love the peaceful feeling that it gives me.

And don't worry--you don't have to know music, or have a "good" voice, to do it!

The Chakra Tones

*Chakra expert Anodea Judity uses different vowels as chakra tones. Starting with Chakra 1, they are: O as in home, U as in cool, A as in father, A as in hay, E as in feet, mm, and nng as in ring. Just silence can also be used for the seventh chakra. Use whatever works best for you.

How to Tone the Chakras With Your Voice

You don't have to be loud or strain your voice. Do whatever feels right to you, but nice and soft is just fine.

You can use the concept of vocal toning in many ways. (When my daughter was an infant, she cried non-stop whenever we took her somewhere in the car. Out of desperation, my husband and I started toning one day. Worked like a charm to quiet our fussy baby!) Here are three possibilities:

Twelve-Minute Vocal Toning
Make yourself comfortable, sitting upright in a chair, comfortably but with your spine straight. Choose a place and a time where you will not be disturbed for 15 minutes or so.

Take a few deep breaths to relax.

To tone, you can choose either the vowel sound, or the bija mantra shown in the chart. Start with the first, or root chakra, and work your way up.

As you create each tone, first take a deep breath, all the way into your belly, then just let the sound flow from you as you exhale.

Feel the vibration of each tone in the area of the chakra being toned. Gently hold the intention that it will open the chakra just the right amount, clearing any blockages or impurities; that it will balance the chakra with the other six chakras; and that it will align and energize each chakra.

You can hold the color of the chakra you're toning in your mind's eye as you tone, as well.

Sound each tone several times, say three to ten.

The pitch of the toning should go up as you rise through the chakras, roughly following the notes of "do re mi fa so la ti." But don't sweat it if this makes you nervous; you can even just use the same note for each chakra if you want. Intention is the main thing!

When you're done, give yourself some time to meditate or sit in silence for a few minutes.

Vocal Toning with Focused Breathing
Vocal toning encourages the kind of breathing that helps your nervous system relax. But you can increase the benefits of vocal toning even more by consciously breathing in the following pattern as you tone. Following the general instructions above,

• Inhale smoothly.
• After your in-breath is complete, pause for a second or two before exhaling.
• Vocalize the chakra tones as you exhale, make the out-breath approximately twice as long as the in-breath. (It isn't important to make it exactly twice as long; the concept is just to make the exhale longer than the inhale.)
• If this makes you dizzy or faint, return to normal breathing for a while and try again later.

Vocal Toning, Short Version
If you don't have time for the longer version, simply do the same thing, but only repeat the tones once or twice.

Vocal Toning, Targeted Version
If at any time during your day, you feel that a particular chakra, or a particular aspect of your life, is "out of whack," just tone that chakra, or the chakra related to the aspect of your life you're having trouble with. For example, if you need to boost your confidence and personal power, tone the 3rd chakra. If you're having trouble expressing yourself, or having trouble with a creative project, tone the 5th chakra. And so on.

More Resources for Chakra Tones and Sound Healing

More Chakra Healing and Clearing

Learn about chakra blockages, a common energetic phenomenon with major implications for your health.

Would you like to learn fun, everyday things that you can do with intention to open each of your chakras?

Learn why and how to balance your chakras here.

Would you like to learn a meditation to help clear and balance your chakras? You can learn a chakra meditation here .

Learn about chakra stones and gems and how to use them for healing at this page.

Learn about chakra essential oils and how to use aromatherapy for healing your subtle energy centers here.

More Information About Chakras

For more specific information about individual chakras, go to the Chakra Chart page.

Learning About Your Own Chakras

Go from Chakra Tones to Chakras main page.

Go from Chakra Tones to The Energy Healing Site home page .