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Attention & Awareness

What is Soundscape Awareness?

Soundscape awareness is a contemplative listening practice that receives the entire surrounding field of sound at once, without selecting, naming, or judging any single sound (Andringa, 2025).

Indirect Evidence

Last Updated

3 Jul 2026

We are still reviewing this page. Our research team checks every technique page for accuracy and evidence quality before final release. Details may change as that review completes. The evidence badge shows our current reading of the published research.

RECOMMENDED DOSE

How Much Soundscape Awareness Should You Practice?

No direct dose evidence; editorial synthesis. A short, low-commitment starting point suitable for someone new to sound-based attention practice, chosen to build a sustainable habit before extending duration.

No direct dose evidence; editorial synthesis. A modest step up in both session length and frequency for practitioners who have established a comfortable routine and want to deepen sustained attention to sound.

No direct dose evidence; editorial synthesis. A maintenance-level commitment for experienced practitioners, aligned with common conventions for longer-form contemplative practice rather than any tested Soundscape Awareness protocol.

Session length

Session length: 5–10 minutes

5

MIN

How long each individual practice session should last from start to finish.

Frequency

Frequency: 3–4 days

3

DAYS

The number of days per week to fit a session into your routine.

Session length

Session length: 10–20 minutes

10

MIN

How long each individual practice session should last from start to finish.

Frequency

Frequency: 4–5 days

4

DAYS

The number of days per week to fit a session into your routine.

Session length

Session length: 20–30 minutes

20

MIN

How long each individual practice session should last from start to finish.

Frequency

Frequency: 5–7 days

5

DAYS

The number of days per week to fit a session into your routine.

About this card. No direct dose-response literature exists for Soundscape Awareness; these ranges are general starting points for sound-based attention practice, not tested protocols. These recommendations are not a substitute for personalised guidance from a qualified practitioner.

Related Techniques to Soundscape Awareness

Visual Field Awareness

Choiceless Awareness

Sense Door Practice

For clinicians, researchers, and curious readers

What's in a session?

How does it work?

What does it do to the body?

What is it used for?

What does the research say?

Which studies have tested it?

Where does it come from?

Is it safe?Who should practise with care?How to practise safely?

How does it compare?

Other questions readers ask

What does a Soundscape Awareness session involve?

Soundscape awareness is a contemplative listening practice that takes in the whole surrounding field of sound at once, without selecting, naming, or judging any single sound (Andringa, 2025).

You settle in a calm spot and widen listening to include the full field of sound at once, near and distant, foreground and background, continuous and intermittent. Instead of reaching out to identify or track any single sound, you let sounds arrive on their own and receive the whole environment as one ever-changing composition. The form draws on acoustic ecology and Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening as well as Buddhist contemplative listening.

Soundscape awareness differs from sound meditation, which often rests on a single chosen sound such as a bell or chant, and from music listening, which involves aesthetic enjoyment and judgment. What defines it is non-selective, panoramic reception of the entire sound field rather than focus on one source. It is a personal attention practice, not the staff-led environmental sound interventions studied in care settings, though much of the available evidence comes from those settings.

Not to be confused with

Sound baths and sound healing

Sound baths and sound healing wash the listener in produced tones from gongs, singing bowls, or chimes, with the sound applied to you. Soundscape awareness adds no sound at all; it opens attention to the ambient field that is already there, natural or artificial, and simply receives it.

Sound meditation (single-sound focus)

Sound meditation usually anchors attention on one chosen sound, a bell, a tone, or a mantra, and returns to it whenever the mind wanders. Soundscape awareness stays deliberately panoramic, holding the entire field of sound at once without narrowing onto any single source.

Music listening

Everyday music listening involves aesthetic evaluation, following melody, liking or disliking, and being moved by a piece. Soundscape awareness sets judgment aside and lets every sound arrive with equal, non-selective attention, treating the whole environment as one changing composition to receive rather than assess.

How does Soundscape Awareness work?

Soundscape awareness appears to work by turning attention outward to the whole field of sound and letting how that sound is received shape your state. In a theoretical model of sound and wellbeing, pleasant or subtle sounds support a calmer, more open state of mind, while jarring or intrusive sounds pull attention toward vigilance, the braced, on-alert quality of being ready for something to go wrong (Andringa & Lanser, 2013). Widening attention this way, a mode researchers call open monitoring, can feel spacious and effortless, with peripheral sounds becoming vivid on their own rather than something you strain to catch. This is a proposed pathway rather than one measured during the practice, and how much any one person settles depends on the listener and the sound around them.

Possible Mechanisms

Exteroceptive Awareness

moderate EVIDENCE

Soft, pleasant background sound can feel like the mind widening and settling, while a sudden or grating noise can make the body tense and snap to attention. This is exteroceptive awareness, attention turned outward to the field of sound around you, and how that sound registers, pleasant or jarring, may help shape whether you settle or stay on guard (Andringa & Lanser, 2013).

Attentional Broadening

moderate EVIDENCE

When attention keeps snapping onto a single sound, soundscape awareness widens it to take in the whole field of sound at once, near and far, foreground and background. This open-field way of listening, which researchers call open monitoring, can feel spacious and unforced, and in one theoretical account pleasant or subtle sounds support a calmer, more open state of mind while jarring sounds pull attention back toward vigilance (Andringa & Lanser, 2013).

Arousal Downregulation

moderate EVIDENCE

Calm, gentle sound seems to let the body drop its guard, easing that background alertness that keeps the shoulders tight and the breath shallow, while jarring or intrusive sound does the opposite and pulls attention into vigilance, the braced, ready-for-trouble state (Andringa & Lanser, 2013). This is a proposed pathway for how the practice may settle arousal, not an effect that has been measured during the practice itself.

What does Soundscape Awareness do to the body?

Body changes have not been measured directly for soundscape awareness, so the most honest answer is that any physical shift is expected rather than recorded. Based on related sound-appraisal research, receiving sound as pleasant and unthreatening is thought to ease sympathetic arousal, the fight-or-flight activation that keeps you scanning and on edge, letting the body settle (Andringa & Lanser, 2013). In practice this tends to feel like the shoulders dropping, the breath slowing, and the sense that you no longer need to brace against your surroundings. No study has tracked heart rate, blood pressure, or other stress markers during the practice itself, so treat this as a plausible direction, not a proven one.

Sympathetic arousal

moderate EVIDENCE

When you feel wired and can't stop scanning for what might go wrong, that keyed-up state is sympathetic arousal, the body's fight-or-flight activation. In Soundscape Awareness this hasn't been measured directly, but related sound-appraisal research suggests it may ease when sounds are received as pleasant and unthreatening and the mind lowers its guard (Andringa & Lanser, 2013). Many practitioners feel this as the shoulders dropping, the breath slowing, and no longer needing to brace against the surrounding sound.

Sympathetic Activation

moderate EVIDENCE

As you let sound arrive without chasing it, the body often unbraces, with the shoulders dropping and the breath slowing. This may reflect a drop in sympathetic activation, the body's fight-or-flight arousal, though that direction is inferred from sound-appraisal research rather than measured during the practice itself (Andringa & Lanser, 2013).

What is Soundscape Awareness used for?

Limited and mostly indirect evidence supports soundscape approaches, and all of it comes from shaping shared sound environments rather than from the solo listening practice. In a cluster-randomized trial in five Dutch nursing homes, a staff sound-awareness intervention reduced neuropsychiatric symptoms in residents with dementia, a between-group drop of about 8 points on the NPI-NH scale versus care as usual (95% CI -11.7 to -2.6), a clinically meaningful easing of agitation, anxiety, and related symptoms (Kosters et al., 2022). Related work found staff awareness training made soundscapes measurably calmer and less chaotic (Kosters et al., 2022), a small study linked richer sound awareness to lighter mood and less challenging behavior in people with intellectual disabilities (Bosch et al., 2018), and natural-sound approaches show early promise for symptoms in Alzheimer's disease (Belojević, 2024). What is not yet supported: any large trial of soundscape awareness as a personal meditation, evidence in healthy adults, or a claim that it treats a diagnosed condition; the same nursing-home trial found no clear change in quality of life or medication use (Kosters et al., 2022).

What does the research say about Soundscape Awareness?

The strongest finding is that helping people attend to and shape a sound environment can reduce distress. In a 15-month cluster-randomized trial in nursing homes, a staff sound-awareness program lowered neuropsychiatric symptoms in residents with dementia and made those spaces measurably calmer (Kosters et al., 2022), (Kosters et al., 2022). Smaller studies point the same way, linking richer sound awareness to lighter mood and less distress, with natural-sound approaches looking suggestive but not yet confirmed in Alzheimer's disease (Bosch et al., 2018), (Belojević, 2024). The main limit is directness, since almost all of this studies environmental sound interventions in care settings rather than soundscape awareness as a personal listening practice, and a related personalized-music trial found no significant effect on agitation (McCreedy et al., 2022). Effects on healthy adults practicing open, panoramic listening remain largely untested.

0

Meta-analyses

1

RCTs

1

Systematic reviews

0

Observational

6

Pilot

Studied populations

nursing home residents with dementianursing home staffpeople with intellectual disabilities & staff

Which studies have tested Soundscape Awareness?

Soundscape Optimization in Nursing Homes Through Raising Awareness in Nursing Staff With MoSART+

2022

Finding: Across four nursing homes, staff used a sound-awareness program (MoSART+) to notice their acoustic surroundings and make small changes, and across nearly 1,900 sound measurements the environments shifted measurably toward calmer, less chaotic profiles, with staff also rating the spaces more favorably. For a practitioner, this hints that simply paying closer attention to the sounds around you can change how an environment feels, though the study tracked the room's acoustics and staff impressions rather than any personal listening meditation. It was also an uncontrolled field study in care settings, so it does not measure the individual contemplative practice or prove a direct clinical benefit for the listener.

reported significant; p<0.01

See full citation in references

Soundscape Awareness Intervention Reduced Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Nursing Home Residents With Dementia: A Cluster-Randomized Trial With MoSART+

n = 97

Finding: In this trial across five Dutch nursing homes, care staff were trained to notice and adjust the everyday sound environment around 97 residents living with dementia, and the residents showed a meaningful drop in agitation and other distressing behavioural symptoms compared with usual care. The same study found no clear change in residents' quality of life or medication use, or in staff workload and job satisfaction, so the benefit was specific rather than sweeping. It is worth being clear that this was a staff-led effort to reshape a shared soundscape in a care setting, not a personal contemplative listening practice, so it does not tell us what solo soundscape meditation would do for a general reader.

Where does Soundscape Awareness come from?

Soundscape awareness grows from two lineages: the acoustic ecology movement pioneered by R. Murray Schafer alongside Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening practice, and Buddhist contemplative listening traditions. From acoustic ecology it takes the idea of the whole sound environment as a coherent, meaningful composition worth receiving with care (Andringa, 2025), and from contemplative listening it takes the receptive, non-grasping quality of attention. These roots help explain the practice's form, its panoramic, non-selective way of listening, rather than proving any clinical effect.

Is Soundscape Awareness safe?

Soundscape awareness is low-risk for most healthy adults: it asks only for open, receptive listening and carries no known physical hazard. The main caution is about where you listen, not the practice itself. In care-setting research, loud or intrusive sound environments are linked to disturbed sleep, raised blood pressure, and more agitation, the restless, keyed-up state in which the body stays braced and cannot settle, so a harsh space can leave you more on edge rather than calmer (Janus et al., 2020). This is a precaution drawn from studies of noise in dementia care rather than a measured risk of the technique, and it points to one simple step: choose a calm, low-noise setting so attention can loosen instead of standing guard.

Who should practise with care?

Take extra care if you are especially sensitive to noise, if your sleep is easily disrupted, or if busy sound environments tend to leave you agitated. If any of these fit, it helps to be deliberate about choosing a quiet, low-stimulation space and to keep early sessions short. This suggestion is grounded in practice rather than a tested restriction: no study has examined soundscape awareness in these groups specifically, but care-setting research associates high-intensity, unwanted sound with disturbed sleep and agitation in people who are more sensitive to their surroundings (Janus et al., 2020).

Loud or intrusive sound environments

lowpractice-informed

The main caution is where you listen, not the practice itself. In care-setting research, loud or intrusive sound environments are linked to disturbed sleep, raised blood pressure, and more agitation, so a harsh space can leave you more on edge rather than calmer. This is a precaution drawn from studies of noise in dementia care rather than a measured risk of the technique. Choose a calm, low-noise setting so attention can loosen instead of standing guard.

Noise sensitivity or easily disrupted sleep

lowpractice-informed

How does Soundscape Awareness compare to similar techniques?

Technique	Best for	Use with care	Evidence strength	Distinction
Open monitoring meditation	Cultivating open, choiceless awareness across thoughts, feelings, and all the senses, not sound alone.		EVIDENCE	Open monitoring is the broad family of meditation in which attention stays wide and receptive, letting whatever arises come and go without fixing on any single object. Soundscape awareness applies that same open, non-selective stance specifically to the auditory field, taking in the whole sonic environment at once rather than ranging across all experience.
Music therapy and personalized music	Engaging mood and memory through familiar, preferred music, as offered in dementia care to ease distress.	A large personalized-music trial found no significant reduction in agitation or medication use, so calming effects are not certain.	moderate EVIDENCE

Other questions readers ask

What is soundscape awareness?

Soundscape awareness is a contemplative listening practice in which you open attention to the whole surrounding field of sound at once, near and far, foreground and background, without selecting, naming, or judging any single sound (Andringa, 2025).

+

Soundscape awareness is a receptive listening practice. Rather than focusing on one sound or listening for pleasure, you take in the entire sonic environment as a single, ever-changing whole and let each sound arrive without chasing or evaluating it (Andringa, 2025). Its panoramic, non-selective form draws on the acoustic ecology movement and Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening, alongside Buddhist contemplative listening traditions. These roots shape what the practice is; they describe its form and framing, not proof that it treats any condition.

Does soundscape awareness actually work?

Partly, and mostly indirectly. The strongest findings come from care settings, where staff shaping the sound environment eased distress in nursing home residents with dementia, not from the solo listening practice, which remains untested in healthy adults (Kosters et al., 2022). Treat it as a gentle, low-risk practice with encouraging but unproven direct evidence, not a treatment.

+

Partly, and mostly indirectly. In a cluster-randomized nursing-home trial, a staff sound-awareness program reduced neuropsychiatric symptoms in residents with dementia and made spaces measurably calmer, and smaller studies link richer sound awareness to lighter mood, with natural-sound approaches showing early promise in Alzheimer's disease (Kosters et al., 2022), (Kosters et al., 2022), (Bosch et al., 2018), (Belojević, 2024). The findings are suggestive rather than settled: the same trial saw no clear change in quality of life or medication use, a related personalized-music trial found no significant effect on agitation, and almost all of this research examines shared sound environments rather than solo listening (Kosters et al., 2022), (McCreedy et al., 2022). As a personal meditation in healthy adults, it has not been directly tested.

Glossary

Soundscape

The whole surrounding sound environment as a person actually perceives and makes sense of it, rather than raw noise measured in decibels.

The perceived and understood acoustic environment as an outcome of auditory sense-making, characterized along experiential dimensions such as pleasantness and eventfulness.

Open monitoring

A style of meditation in which attention stays wide and receptive, noticing whatever arises without settling on one object. In soundscape awareness it feels like listening to the entire field of sound at once instead of chasing a single sound.

A meditative attentional mode characterized by non-directed, receptive monitoring of the contents of experience without selection of a specific object, contrasted with focused-attention practices.

Attentional broadening

Deliberately widening attention from a narrow focus to a panoramic, open awareness that takes in the full perceptual field. It tends to feel spacious and effortless, with peripheral sounds becoming vivid on their own.

Expansion of the attentional scope from selective, object-focused processing toward diffuse, whole-field awareness.

Meta-awareness

The quiet capacity to notice the state of your own mind, such as realizing you have drifted into thought or that attention has narrowed. In practice it registers as a background noticing that does not disrupt the listening itself.

Metacognitive monitoring of the current state and processes of one's own mind, including awareness of attentional quality and the arising of mental commentary.

Acoustic ecology

The study of the relationship between living beings and their sonic environment, associated with R. Murray Schafer. It treats the surrounding field of sound as a meaningful, coherent whole worth attending to with care.

Deep Listening

A contemplative and compositional practice developed by Pauline Oliveros centered on listening to as much sound as possible at all times. It provides part of the theoretical and practical framing for soundscape awareness.

Full References

[1]other peer reviewed

Janouk Kosters, Sarah Janus, Kirsten A. van den Bosch, Sytse U. Zuidema, Hendrika J. Luijendijk, Tjeerd Andringa (2022). Soundscape Optimization in Nursing Homes Through Raising Awareness in Nursing Staff With MoSART+. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.871647

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.871647

Cited in: Benefits, Research

[2]other peer reviewed

Janouk Kosters, Sarah Janus, Kirsten A. van den Bosch, Tjeerd Andringa, Esther Oomen‐de Hoop, Michiel R. de Boer (2022). Soundscape Awareness Intervention Reduced Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Nursing Home Residents With Dementia: A Cluster-Randomized Trial With MoSART+. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2022.11.010

DOI: 10.1016/j.jamda.2022.11.010

Effect sizes

Outcome	Effect size	95% CI	N	Comparator	Source
neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPI-NH)	mean difference (between-group, ITT) = -8.0	95% CI -11.7 to -2.6	97	care as usual	Kosters et al., 2022
quality of life (QUALIDEM)	odds ratio = 2.8	95% CI -0.7 to 6.3	—	—	Kosters et al., 2022
proportion of 'calm' and 'chaotic' soundscapes	reported significant; p<0.01	—	—	—	Kosters et al., 2022
agitation (CMAI)	average marginal effect = 1.33	95% CI -1.37 to 4.03	976	usual care	McCreedy et al., 2022

Soundscape Awareness - Page 24 | Insight Timer