In this unit the voice exercises will gradually move you on to vocalising in your Better Voice without the use of the hum. But please don’t stop humming!
The hum is your friend: the kind you enjoy spending time with regularly, the kind who supports you.
That’s because humming the way you have learned here will always be the best way to keep the focus of your voice in your head and away from your throat. And, every time you do it, it will help to make producing your Better Voice easier and more automatic.
For example:
Humming is also a great way to keep your voice and your head cavities (paranasal sinuses and nasal cavities) healthy.
Stagnation in the body tends to lead to ill health, so to keep your sinuses healthy stale air and mucus need to move through the system quickly. A Swedish study in 2002 found that in one outbreath humming exchanged 96% of the air in the maxillary sinuses (the ones behind the cheekbones) compared with just 4% in normal quiet breathing. The researchers concluded that ‘humming is an extremely effective means of increasing sinus ventilation’.
This increased ventilation will also help combat any infection. When you have a cold or chronic sinus infection the mucous membrane lining the head cavities becomes inflamed and overproduces mucus. The mucus then fills the cavities, giving you a ‘stuffed up’ feeling and often pain. Humming can shift the mucus through and out of the system, thus reducing the symptoms. There are many documented cases of a course in White’s Technique clearing the symptoms of a serious sinus infection in the pre-antibiotic era.
Evidence is also accumulating that self-created sounds, in particular humming (an mmmm sound with the mouth closed), can have a wide range of therapeutic effects. The humming sound – which like all sound is a vibration – appears to act as an internal massage in the body, promoting a generally healthful state.
Specific effects that have been documented include beneficial increases in cell oxygen, levels of melatonin and oxytocin, lymphatic circulation, and endorphin release; coupled with reductions in blood pressure, heart rate, and stress-related hormones.
It has been suggested that many of these positive benefits can be achieved with as little as five minutes of humming a day (see the follow-up resource in Section 5.6).
Humming therefore supports not only Better Voice production but your general health as well.
In this unit the voice exercises will gradually move you on to vocalising in your Better Voice without the use of the hum. But please don’t stop humming!
The hum is your friend: the kind you enjoy spending time with regularly, the kind who supports you.
That’s because humming the way you have learned here will always be the best way to keep the focus of your voice in your head and away from your throat. And, every time you do it, it will help to make producing your Better Voice easier and more automatic.
For example:
Humming is also a great way to keep your voice and your head cavities (paranasal sinuses and nasal cavities) healthy.
Stagnation in the body tends to lead to ill health, so to keep your sinuses healthy stale air and mucus need to move through the system quickly. A Swedish study in 2002 found that in one outbreath humming exchanged 96% of the air in the maxillary sinuses (the ones behind the cheekbones) compared with just 4% in normal quiet breathing. The researchers concluded that ‘humming is an extremely effective means of increasing sinus ventilation’.
This increased ventilation will also help combat any infection. When you have a cold or chronic sinus infection the mucous membrane lining the head cavities becomes inflamed and overproduces mucus. The mucus then fills the cavities, giving you a ‘stuffed up’ feeling and often pain. Humming can shift the mucus through and out of the system, thus reducing the symptoms. There are many documented cases of a course in White’s Technique clearing the symptoms of a serious sinus infection in the pre-antibiotic era.
Evidence is also accumulating that self-created sounds, in particular humming (an mmmm sound with the mouth closed), can have a wide range of therapeutic effects. The humming sound – which like all sound is a vibration – appears to act as an internal massage in the body, promoting a generally healthful state.
Specific effects that have been documented include beneficial increases in cell oxygen, levels of melatonin and oxytocin, lymphatic circulation, and endorphin release; coupled with reductions in blood pressure, heart rate, and stress-related hormones.
It has been suggested that many of these positive benefits can be achieved with as little as five minutes of humming a day (see the follow-up resource in Section 5.6).
Humming therefore supports not only Better Voice production but your general health as well.
