Chant to Breathe Better

As a follow up to yesterday’s popular post on how to gross out your friends with a steady stream of water out the nose, there may be a more mild-mannered method for clearing your head. Researchers have determined that the vibrations from chanting or humming can also have a beneficial effect on sinus health. Yoga Journal reported that a research team in Sweden discovered that “humming increased nitric oxide levels fifteenfold, compared to quiet exhalations without sound. The exhalations of people with healthy sinuses tend to have high nitric oxide levels, indicating that more air is able to flow between the sinuses and the nose.” In addition, chanting “Om” was found to have a similar effect. Airflow is always a good thing with yoga. While I’m a bit skeptical about the research based solely on the fact that only ten people were tested in the study, my own experience tends to confirm what the “research” apparently “discovered.”