Edge Esmeralda 2026: Science & Sound Healing

This June I returned to Edge Esmeralda with a handful of roles that all shared one common thread: helping people feel healthy, connected, supported, and rooted in a sense of belonging.

For those unfamiliar, Edge City is a month-long pop-up city that (lovingly) infiltrates an existing city. Scientists, founders, engineers, researchers, artists, wellness practitioners, and curious humans gather from around the world to live together, collaborate, and explore ideas for building a brighter future.

This year I served as the Wellness Lead, Connection Lead, and Community Care Lead. On paper, that meant programming the wellness schedule, teaching yoga, breathwork, meditation, and sound healing, facilitating connection experiences, and supporting the emotional well-being of the community.

In practice it meant becoming part nervous system, part host, part listener, part facilitator. Most days I felt like the emotional fascia of the village - helping transmit care, coherence, and connection and electricity 😉throughout the community. Other days I was simply the person people sought out because they needed someone to listen. I am endlessly grateful for the opportunity.

Coming Full Circle

Many people know me today through sound healing, yoga, meditation, breathwork and energy work. What many people don’t know is that I originally came from a research background. I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences with minors in Biology and Sociology (with a theme in death and dying), began graduate work studying Human Consciousness, and later managed a subtle energy research laboratory in San Diego.

My path wasn’t linear, in fact it was very wavy and spirally; sometimes taking steps back before jumping forward; I became severely ill while studying and learning the physiology and function of the body. Unfortunately, conventional medicine created the problem, and that experience opened the door to holistic, alternative and integrative approaches that ultimately changed my life.

The deeper I explored, the less interested I became in choosing between science or spirituality. I became fascinated by the possibility that they might simply be asking different questions about the same human experience. That curiosity has shaped my work ever since.

A Small Sound Bath Case Study

Because Edge attracts such an interdisciplinary community, I had the opportunity to run a small observational case study during one of my sound baths. Participants completed questionnaires immediately before and after the session. Only participants who completed both surveys were included in the analysis (14 matched participants).

The results were encouraging: participants reported notable improvements in:

Stress
Relaxation
Racing thoughts
Physical tension
Sense of peace
Feeling grounded
Feeling present
Anxiety
Emotional overwhelm
Emotional balance

Participants also reported:

Increased mental clarity
Reduced physical discomfort
Reduced fatigue
Greater happiness
Increased connection to themselves
Increased feelings of connection to something larger than themselves

The only measure that did not improve was energy level; but immediately after a deeply relaxing meditation, this isn’t particularly surprising, as many people reported feeling deeply calm, peaceful, or sleepy rather than energized.

Preliminary Findings

Among the matched participants, the largest average improvements included:

Stress: −3.1 points
Racing thoughts: −3.0 points
Physical tension: −2.6 points
Relaxation: +3.0 points
Peace: +2.3 points
Groundedness: +2.2 points
Emotional balance: +1.9 points

Perhaps the finding I found most exciting was that 13 of the 14 participants reported both lower stress and greater bodily relaxation immediately following the sound bath.

This is, of course, a small observational case study but I love that it begins to quantify experiences that many people have described to me for years.

A Glimpse Into the Brain

One of my favorite moments happened almost by accident: my friend Adam happened to wear an EEG/fNIRS headset during one of the sound baths.

The recording captured nearly twenty minutes of physiological data throughout the experience; and the data showed progressive increases in cortical oxygenation during the session, with a noticeable shift approximately eleven minutes into the sound bath. The EEG also demonstrated stable alpha activity (individual alpha peak: 10.2 Hz) and moderate theta activity (patterns commonly associated with relaxed wakefulness and internally focused attention.)

Even though a single recording does not prove that sound healing caused these changes, nor can one participant represent everyone… What it does offer is a fascinating physiological observation that mirrors what many participants reported subjectively.

Around the same time the brain activity appeared to shift, the participant later reflected:

“Thanks for the sound bath! I had an EEG headset on that also captures blood oxygenation. Around 11 minutes in, it looks like my hemispheres began behaving differently - perhaps a shift in focus, attention, or when you invited us to visualize ourselves smiling at different moments throughout life. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it was fascinating to see.”

Where Science and Spirit Meet

The older I get, the less interested I am in proving that one worldview is correct. I no longer see science and spirituality as opposing forces.Science gives us tools for measuring and spirituality gives us language for meaning. One explores how and the other explores why.

Magic's just science that we don't understand yet.
~ Arthur C. Clarke

For me, sound healing has never been about replacing medicine or asking people to believe extraordinary claims; It’s about creating the conditions for the nervous system to soften, for the body to rest, and for people to reconnect with themselves.

I don’t know if everything can be measured and a lot of times things can only be felt: Both matter.

This little study reminded me why I fell in love with research in the first place:

I remain endlessly curious about what it means to be human.