The Safe and Sound Protocol is an evidence-based therapeutic tool designed to exercise and regulate the nervous system. The SSP features specially filtered music that stimulates the vagus & facial nerves.

It’s delivered through a 5-hour musical playlist, using over-the-ear headphones or other stereo sound and an app. There are multiple versions of the playlist, filtered identically, including pop, kids’, classical, and ambient hip hop.

Multiple “pathways” provide differing levels of filtration. We use Core, the most dynamic, and often follow up with the lightly filtered Balance, which can be used as an ongoing daily or weekly support.

Very generally, the SSP has demonstrated benefits for individuals with trauma, anxiety, sensory processing differences, and much more. Originally developed for autistic kids, we find both neurodivergent kids and adults move more comfortably in the world: greater sensory ease, less social distress, and fewer trauma symptoms common to neurodivergents in an ableist world.

The Safe and Sound Protocol requires an app downloaded onto a smartphone or tablet and over the ear (non-earbud) headphones. With a facilitator’s support, you’ll listen to one of the four playlists, gently bringing attention to shifts that occur within and between sessions.

We start slowly, gauging the effect of filtered music on your individual nervous system. It’s common, though not universal, to notice shifts within the first minute or two of listening. We spend time in the session mapping the autonomic changes those shifts indicate, and orienting to what changes you’ll be tuning in to over the time until the next session. Depending on how the experience unfolds, we may introduce independent listening between sessions with your therapist or facilitator. Our clients have completed the SSP as quickly as one month and as slowly as a year. Either way, the timing unfolded in response to the individual’s needs. We’re inviting a stretch, not a strain, a melting, not a flood. Nourishing sips, avoiding overwhelm.

We facilitate the SSP in session, eventually guiding clients to listen independently between sessions if they so wish. Besides the session costs, we charge a $30 monthly access fee, which allows less-pressured listening at an individual pace.