Humming for 15 minutes daily can lower stress by stimulating your vagus nerve through throat vibration. A 2023 study tracked participants wearing heart monitors during stressful days and found humming increased heart rate variability, a key marker of stress resilience.
Questions this video answers
2023
16 hours
15 minutes a day
Do you ever catch yourself just sort of mindlessly humming? I do. I hum all the time. My favorite thing to hum, scales. This is probably because I was training to be an opera singer for so many years of my life, so scales are stuck in my head.
Interestingly, humming is a huge way.
To combat stress.
Did you know that your nervous system can calm itself by humming?
In 2023, just recently, a study came out looking at the effects of humming on heart rate variability. Heart rate variability is a measure that can tell us about our stress levels. If you have more heart rate variability, your nervous system is less stressed versus if you have very low heart rate variability that indicates high stress. Here's how the study was done. Study Participant volunteers agreed to wear a halter device for 16 hours that measured heart rate variability. During this time, the individuals went through stressful circumstances. They engaged in physical activities, they slept, and we did 15 minutes a day of humming. What's wild are the findings? Let me show you. Researchers found that humming generates incredible results in lowering your stress index. Honestly, this works so well for me that that's my first go to when I'm on a plane and there's turbulence. Part of the reason this works is because your vagus nerve goes through your pharynx. And so if you can hum low and feel the vibration in your throat, you're activating your vagus nerve, which can make you feel calm.
