Why humming or singing may calm anxiety
In my Human Givens counselling work, breath work with clients forms an essential part of each session. Relaxation exercises, often using guided visual imagery during which the client is invited to imagine themselves in a relaxing place where they may feel at ease, helps the individual to achieve a calm, regular breathing pattern. With each outbreath, they may let go of any anxious feelings or tension, feeling more and more relaxed and enabling them to think clearly and regain perspective. It’s amazing how helpful and effective such seemingly simple breathing exercises can prove.
It’s interesting also to see how activities, where people focus on their outbreath often unconsciously, contribute to their emotional wellbeing. In my household, one family member breaks up the long and busy workday with frequent, 10-minute breaks to work on a jigsaw puzzle set up in his home office. The jigsaw puzzling facilitates calm, regular breathing while also bringing about an external focus for the person, providing respite away from the noisy dialogue and worries inside one’s own head. Another family member uses singing to feel better, stating “I’m feeling a bit anxious” before heading off to the keyboard to play some chords and sing some numbers from well-known musicals.
I am finding articles that also offer weight to the value of breathing. In September’s issue of Refinery29 (https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/voice-therapy-anxiety-stress-relief?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email_share) Alicia Lansom describes how she uses humming to calm anxiety. She writes that in recent years, vocal therapists have begun to use vocal exercises as a way to release stress build-up and to improve our mental wellbeing. She booked a session with a speech therapist who explained that vocal therapy not only has the capability to reduce irritation on the vocal folds but can also stimulate the vagus nerve, also known as our body's natural stress reliever.
The longest cranial nerve in the human body, the vagus nerve is the key part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which works to turn off our fight-or-flight response in times of extreme stress. Running from the base of the brain to the abdomen, the vagus nerve acts as a communicator between the mind and body, sending signals to our brain to lower our heart rate and regulate our breathing when we feel under threat. Often referred to as the 'rest and digest' system, the parasympathetic nervous system, including the vagus nerve, works to overpower the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for putting us in panic mode), leaving us feeling calmer and more relaxed.
As the vagus nerve is also connected to the laryngeal muscles (aka the voice box), when we sing or chant or hum (or laugh), we are stimulating our vagus nerve through our vocal folds, which then sends signals to our mind and body to relax.
In another article that I recently read, a journalist described how anxious she felt during flights and how she attempted meditative breathing exercises to help her without success. Feeling frustrated and nervous, she turned to the inflight entertainment system and found that watching old episodes of well-known comedy, Friends, had the desired effect of calming her down, proving that laughter can really be the best medicine at times (A possible explanation is that laughter, as with singing, focuses on the outbreath, with the power to calm down the limbic system which controls our emotional arousal and also stimulate the vagus nerve via the laryngeal muscles, helping us to relax).
In her article about the therapeutic value of humming, Alicia Lansom concludes that for her, it's worth practising the vocal exercises in order to centre herself, much like deep breathing during a yoga class. She suggests that there are multiple scientific studies that are assessing the contribution of the vagus nerve in alleviating feelings of anxiety and depression, including one from the American Journal Of Psychiatry which showed that patients with severe depression who were treated with vagus nerve stimulation alongside usual medications and therapy improved far more than those who received just their regular treatments.
It may be interesting to notice what activities you choose to lift your mood and calm any anxious feelings…singing, dancing on the spot, laughing, phone a friend, jigsaw puzzling or playing Solitaire or colouring in, going for a walk or five minutes of mindful contemplation… What these pursuits share is the opportunity to engage in regular breathing and a welcome focus away from our inner thoughts and ‘mental chatter’.
For more information about the Human Givens approach, visit https://www.humangivens.com/human-givens/human-givens-therapy/hg-approach-difference/