“Let me let you feel this.”

That’s how Shanda Beste introduced tuning fork therapy to her clients at All Is Well Health and Inspirations in Andalusia.

Beste explained that tuning forks bring healing sound waves into the energy field and the body to help ease stress, release tight muscles, reduce inflammation and dramatically facilitate healing.

“I was just online, being a nerd, and found them,” she said. “The first one I ordered was a mid-ohm tuner and I loved it instantly.”

She later met Dr. Karen Kelly of Foley, a chiropractor who is also an acupuncturist and certified in a total of 35 therapies.

“She introduced me to Solfeggio tuners, which are wonderful.

Beste said at the time she couldn’t afford to purchase the whole set.

“It was like she knew I needed these,” Beste said. “She gave them to me and said, ‘Pay me when you can.’ ”

Kelly trained Beste through a system that she has customized as she’s learned more about the use of tuning forks.

Basically, she said, tuning forks use acupoints and the mind-body connection to tap into someone’s “stuff.”

“It’s kind of like going to get a massage in that you’re on a table, yet it’s an energy healing session similar to Reiki,” she said. “Like acupuncture, it is working the energy meridians, but with no needles.”

Tuning forks were originally used to tune musical instruments because they emanate perfect wave sound patterns that allow you to fine-tune instruments to the proper pitch. But when a therapist strikes a tuning fork, it causes the air around the fork to vibrate, sending out strong impulses through the air. The sound waves resonate through tissue and down to the cellular level.

The Ohm fork, which is 136.1 Hertz, is the sound of the Earth spinning.

“It is effective because it grounds us,” Beste explained.

Is it popular in Andalusia?

“It is wildly popular,” she said.

When she started introducing tuning forks at All is Well with her “Let me let you feel this” samples, she would place the forks on a client’s shoulder and explain a little bit about energy.

Now, she’s worked with approximately 150 people and averages a half-dozen tuning fork sessions a week. Bob Brooks is a regular client, with a standing Friday appointment.

“I’ve tried a lot of things,” Brooks said. “Medication, acupuncture, chiropractic, deep massage … I like this a lot.”

He said the therapy is similar to both chiropractic and acupuncture. He’s found that his back problems are improved and “my legs don’t go numb anymore.”

But a weekly tuning fork session is one of many lifestyle changes he’s made for his health, he said.

“I walk to work every morning,” he said. He also does yoga-type exercises for about 30 minutes a day, and has modified his diet.

“I had to make changes,” he said. “But I’m very well pleased.”

The Friday sessions are like “a gift to myself,” he said.

Beste is the first to agree that wellness is a lifestyle choice.

“What is shocking is that in our culture, how little maintenance we do for ourselves,” she said. “We wouldn’t think of missing an oil change for the car that will last maybe 10 years, yet we do very little maintenance on the body that has to last a lifetime.”

For those who choose to use tuning fork sessions as part of a balanced lifestyle, she said a monthly session would be fabulous.

“You have to look at health issues – diet, stress and work load,” she said. “You have to consider what you are doing and what your body is telling you.”

A tuning fork session helps to restore the balance, she said, and help your body remember how good “balanced” can feel.

For those who are skeptical that the benefits are “all in the mind,” she points to therapy she’s done with animals. Recently she was called to work with a horse that has equilibrium issues and is partially blind.

“This stallion was locked up among mares in heat and was in a new place,” she said.

The first placement of the tuning fork totally calmed the horse, she said.

“He didn’t know what it was supposed to do for him,” she said. “But it was amazing to watch the calm come over him.”

The wellness center is located at 1029 East Three Notch St.