Humming breath

1. Sit comfortably, back upright, eyes closed or resting low. Pick 1, 3 or 5 minutes and press Start.
2. As the circle grows, breathe in slowly through your nose.
3. As it shrinks, keep your lips closed and hum a low "mmm" until the breath runs out. Feel the buzz in your face and head.
4. If you like, rest your thumbs gently on the small flaps in front of your ear canals to hear the hum from inside. Never push into the ear.

Bhramari is a yoga breathing practice: you breathe in through the nose, then hum through the nose with your lips closed, sometimes with the ears gently covered (Upadhyay et al., 2023 (opens in a new tab)).

In a study of 24 healthy adults, humming made breathing slower and steadier, close to six breaths a minute. The researchers linked this to the long out-breath rather than the sound itself, and people's own ratings of stress and relaxation did not change (2026 study (opens in a new tab)). So think of the hum as an easy way to make each out-breath long and even. Humming also raises the level of nitric oxide in the nose about fifteen-fold, but that study measured the gas, not how anyone felt (Weitzberg and Lundberg, 2002 (opens in a new tab)).

A review of 58 studies found that breathing practices worked better in sessions of five minutes or more, and that most of the studies were not very strong (Bentley et al., 2023 (opens in a new tab)). Treat one or three minutes as a taster.

• When worry is loud, before an exam, a match, a talk or a hard conversation.
• At bedtime, as a slow way to wind down.
• Skip it with a blocked nose, an ear infection, or if you feel dizzy. Breathe normally and stop if anything feels uncomfortable.

This is a self-help practice, not medical advice. If anxiety or fear is affecting your daily life, talk to a doctor.