Anxiety seems to be something just about everyone is experiencing today. Many people learnt how to be anxious from one of their parents, or due to a stressful childhood and have lived with an active anxious part for most of their lives. Most people don’t even realise that the anxious voice in their head that has been on repeat since childhood is not who they are it is just an emotion that likes to take control.
When we let the emotion of anxiety take over, we always feel out of control and find ourselves overthinking to the point of exhaustion. One of the problems with getting control of anxiety is that many people have never really felt what it is like to be calm or maybe they have had glimpses on a holiday or during some leave, but this seems short lived and once back into the swing of things, anxiety pops up again wanting to take back control.
The issue with overcoming or taking back control from anxiety is that you have to practise doing this every day. There is no quick fix or magic wand, you need to decide that you don’t want to live like this anymore and start to make some changes. The easiest change to make to start this process is to begin humming. Yes, humming has been proven through scientific research to provide numerous health benefits to the body because when you hum you activate the parasympathetic nervous system as know as ‘your calming down system’. Slow controlled humming (repeating the mmmmm sound for 10 – 15 sec for 5 min) has been found to have the following benefits:
- Regulates the autonomic nervous system
- Improved pulmonary function and blood pressure
- Improves heart rate variability
- Improves tinnitus symptoms
- Decreases anxiety and depression symptoms
- Decreases drug and alcohol addiction
So if you want to begin learning how to relax and get back in control of your anxiety then why not hum in the shower, in the car, on your morning walk or while you are doing the dishes.