Hum Your Stress Away

Feeling stressed? Try humming!

When our body perceives stress, our sympathetic nervous system activates the fight-or-flight response (also known as the sympathetic nervous system. This can lead to increased heart rate, a change in the way we breathe and a rush of adrenaline and cortisol.

All well and good if we’re about to compete in the 200m in Paris, but less useful when the Head of Accounts has set an unrealistic deadline.

To counteract the uncomfortable sensations of stress and anxiety, we want to engage our parasympathetic nervous system, also known as the 'rest and digest' state.

This is where the vagus nerve comes in. The vagus nerve travels from behind your ears and down your neck to your abdomen. It plays a key role in regulating all sorts of bodily functions related to the stress response, helping to lower heart and respiratory rate, stimulate digestion, reduce inflammation, and induce relaxation.

So to counteract the fight-flight response, it can be really helpful to do activities which stimulate the vagus nerve.

There are lots of different ways of doing this, because the nerve is very long and interacts with many different parts of your body. Activities such as deep breathing, yoga, meditation, exercise ... and humming.

Because your vagus nerve runs through both the larynx and pharynx in your throat, when you hum, your vocal muscles create soothing vibrations that travel down your throat and chest. This stimulates the vagus nerve, triggering a relaxation response.

Research has shown that when people hum, their heartrate decreases – a great indicator of stress release.

And other benefits have been discovered too. When we hum, oscillating sound waves can also affect the sinuses, leading to increased levels of nitric oxide in the nose. Nitric oxide is a neural transmitter that is released as a gas to sterilize the air you breathe, protecting your body by sterilizing airborne pathogens, and reducing allergies.

Nitric oxide also increases oxygenation of the blood and has been shown to reduce blood pressure. The more nasal NO, the better!

One study found a 15-fold increase of nasal nitric oxide from humming compared to exhaling quietly!

Humming also leads to some unexpected psychological effects. These include increased body awareness and “de-centring” – the ability to separate ourselves from thoughts, emotions and sensations.

So, next time life is getting on top you, try humming. You can just let out a quite monotone hum, or have some fun with creating a melody. I’m sure your co-workers will enjoy it too ??

Let me know in the comments if humming helped you feel calmer!