Hum for Your Health! It May Help Your Sinuses

Humming a happy tune can ease the mind and heart--and may also help the nasal passages, according to a new report by Swedish researchers.

Dr. Eddie Weitzberg of the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden and his colleague Jon O. N. Lundberg found that humming lets people exhale significantly more air from their nasal passages than during less-whimsical exhalations, an advantage that could lower frequent hummers' risk of sinus infections.

The researchers determined how much hummers exhaled by measuring their exhalation of nitric oxide (NO), a gas produced in the lungs and nasal passages. NO helps blood vessels to dilate, thereby allowing oxygen-carrying blood to flow more freely. Measuring NO is a good indication of how much air people are exhaling from their nasal passages, according to the report in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Weitzberg and Lundberg found that hummers exhaled 15 times more NO than when they silently exhaled. The investigators studied 10 adult, nonsmoking males, with no history of allergies or any other lung disorder.

Humming appears to increase the amount of NO funneled into the nose from the sinuses, the air-containing cavities within the skull that connect to the nose, the authors note. In addition, humming seems to help facilitate the exchange of air from the sinuses to the nasal passages, which may, in turn, help ventilate the sinuses, protecting them from developing infections.

In particular, Weitzberg and Lundberg mention the potential benefits of humming on sinusitis, or sinus infections. Symptoms of sinusitis include nasal congestion and drainage, facial pain and malaise. The condition is considered chronic when it lasts longer than 6 weeks.

"Proper ventilation of the sinuses is essential for sinus integrity," Weitzberg and Lundberg write.

"The data presented here indicate that humming is an extremely effective means of increasing sinus ventilation," they add.

As such, they suggest that researchers continue to investigate the benefits of an activity as simple as humming on a person's airflow through their nose. "It will therefore be of great interest to study whether daily periods of humming can reduce the risk for sinusitis in patients susceptible to upper airway infections," Weitzberg and Lundberg conclude.