It turns out humming offers many health benefits. The benefits include: relief from stress and anxiety, decrease in heart rate, increase in lymphatic circulation, increase in nasal nitric oxide, and vagus nerve stimulation.
A few months ago, I was on a call with one of my favorite neuroscientists. I had been reviewing a set of draft documents for someone else and was a little stressed about the material. I jokingly mentioned that I knew humming would be a good stress break. He said, “Even better, keep a kazoo next to your computer.”
I bought a kazoo and quickly noticed that in addition to all the benefits of humming, a kazoo also works your abdominal muscles (depending on the tune you choose; try Yankee Doodle or John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt).
Manoush Zomorodi on the NPR Body Electric, Season 2, Episode 12, included a short episode here on using a kazoo for a 5 minute screen break.
For more information on the benefits of humming, you can check out this book: THE HUMMING EFFECT, by Jonathan and Andi Goldman.
Happy Humming!
Linda Stone 