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I am a musician and sound healer. My ears are my dominant sense for the intake of information. Visually, I am not very interested in detail. Looking at something intensely is work for me whereas listening to the fullness of the composites of a sound are for me, a delight. I experience the world more through my ears than my eyes. That’s just me. I like to play with sound. It has helped me with many physical and emotional challenges over the years.

Around the age of 40, I was diagnosed with asthma. I had to take medicines that made me very jittery, which I hated. So, I decided to experiment with humming sounds. I thought that if I could find a note that really vibrated my lungs, I could try toning that on a daily basis to see if I could stop using my inhalers. After humming for a while, I found the note! Toning it felt really good to my lungs. I discovered that when I hummed this sound for 20 minutes a day, I no longer had to use my inhalers. My asthma eventually went away, and I didn’t have to hum that note anymore. That’s what made me a believer in the power of sound for healing.

Much later I found out that humming has actually been studied for its health benefits. There are worldwide studies that prove humming lowers heart rate and blood pressure, increases nitric oxide, increases lymphatic circulation, increases melatonin levels, releases endorphins, and releases oxytocin.

I have also used humming to energize my underactive thyroid and to boost my immune system. Humming, like toning, is using an unconscious, natural, human bodily process — consciously. When we hum, all the vibrations stay inside our bodies. It’s like an internal body massage, increasing circulation and oxygenation, a main ingredient for all healing. Humming also increases nitric oxide — a molecule we all possess naturally. Nitric oxide energizes our cardiovascular, respiratory, and immune systems. It causes expansion of our blood vessels, which increases blood flow and lowers blood pressure.

Specifically, humming instantly increases nitric oxide in the nasal passages. This is vitally important in our struggle against this novel coronavirus. The sinuses are where this virus lingers for days before it infects other tissues in the body. Nitric oxide is anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. Humming while exhaling increases nitric oxide creation to fifteen times the amount created when we normally and quietly inhale. Dr. Deitrich Klinghardt, famed Swiss doctor of medical neurobiology, studied this as much as 15 years ago and found, “Nitric oxide produced in the nasal passages is part of the defense system against bacterial and viral infections.” He suggests whenever no one is listening to you, hum to prevent or treat COVID-19.

I am a vibrational expression
Of the Infinite Eternal
Becoming aware of itself
Within the heart of matter.

 

Before I knew any of this information, I used humming to enhance my immune system. I did a meditation every day for 10-15 minutes that kept me healthy for many years. I did it not because I had any logical reason for doing it; I did it because it made me feel great and that was good enough for me. When I felt a scratchiness in my throat, like I was coming down with a cold, a couple of hours later after humming I would notice that feeling was gone, and the cold never manifested. It was because my immune system was so pumped that it could fend off viruses and bacterial infections that were inhaled, like COVID-19. To put it succinctly, matter vibrates, sound is vibration, and therefore sound affects matter. You just need to discover the right sound for the specific piece of matter.

What is the right sound to boost your immune system? It’s a simple gliding up and down a C major scale, using your voice to hum from middle C on the piano (256Hz) up to the octave above it (512Hz). While you hum, you are gliding up slowly to include all of the notes that are contained in the space between the low C and the high C. It sounds like a slide whistle or penny whistle. Then you take a breath and glide back down to the lower C in the same way, sounding all the notes contained in that octave. It’s that simple. If you have no way to find the sound of middle C, there are plenty of tone generators online that can play it for you, or you could use a chromatic C-to-C pitch pipe to find the note.

Finding the note that truly vibrates your sinuses is very powerful. Put your fingers on either side of your nose and hum up and down until you find the sound that really vibrates your nose and sinuses, and keep humming it! Adding intention to the hum makes it even more powerful. Speaking a thought or sound makes it tangible. The thought is no longer invisible and silent. Speaking it gives it substance — a body. It takes up space and exists. Creation stories throughout ancient traditions, including Christianity, identify sound as the primal creative force.

Intentional sound is very powerful. The breath is the initiator and carrier of all vocal sounds. Using the consciousness of the breath as a carrier for heartfelt intention expressed through humming is a profoundly useful sound healing technique that can be very beneficial to your health.

SpiritofChange magazine

Kathleen Nagy spent 18 years performing in symphony orchestras playing the French horn, teaching music education and directing musical theater productions. For the past 20 years she has been a BioAcoustic Research Associate specializing in Voice Energy Analysis and Acoustic Biofeedback for sports or muscle injuries, and now specializes in teaching people how to hum the sounds that are good for their bodies. Download a free immune boosting mp3 at thesoundlady.com.