Yesterday I heard that when we hum, we don’t have thoughts.
I’ve known for a while that humming is good for the vagus nerve, that it stimulates it and that this helps the body regulate important functions like heart rate, digestion, and respiration.
But this humming-and-having-no-thoughts thing was new to me.
As a professional over-thinker, I’m into not-thinking. Not-thinking happens to me when I exercise hard like running or spinning. It happens when I’m deeply listening to someone. It happens when I’m gardening. And it happens when I’m making art.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this deep enjoyment, creativity and immersion in life the flow zone.
When we’re in the flow zone, in our creative brain, time is meaningless. It’s non-existent. I could work for three hours straight and not have any idea that it’s happening until something snaps me out of it and I look at the clock.
Not great if you do it by accident and miss an appointment.
But great otherwise.
Great for resting the brain.
I have to imagine that, like humming, being in the flow zone is good for heart rate, digestion, respiration. You know, good for being alive.
I picked up a book called Ikigai this week. Ikigai is a Japanese word: “iki” meaning “to live,” and “gai” meaning “reason.” Ikigai means “a reason to live.” The concept encourages people to discover what truly matters to them and to live a life filled with purpose and joy.
Maybe the Japanese and Csikszentmihalyi are talking about the same thing?
What’s your reason to live? What really matters to you? What do you love doing so much that time disappears?
I went to a concert over the weekend. Cavetown and Mother Mother at The Torch at the LA Colesium. Magical show. I love seeing live music. That’s a flow state for me.
It’s so tempting to video your favorite song, isn’t it? But do you notice how when you do, you don’t really enjoy the song as much? You kinda miss it, don’t you? Once you put that phone up, you’re no longer in the zone, you’re no longer immersed in the experience.
In college, I took Spanish up until the point that you needed to do a semester abroad in a Spanish-speaking country. I didn’t want to do that — can’t remember why. But in learning a language you definitely hit a point where the classroom doesn’t have much more to offer you and in order to go deeper, you need a deeper experience.
You need to immerse yourself in it.
I don’t know. I’m looking around and seeing so much in our culture de-value this very precious thing - this deep work of creativity - while simultaneously wonder why we’re all so stressed and the world is going to shit!
Hey, I have an idea. Let’s immerse ourself in the things that bring us joy. Because in the immersion we find rest. We find peace. We find joy. We find answers to problems.
And these things aren’t “nice to haves” like culture would like you to think — THEY ARE ESSENTIAL.
YOUR JOY IS ESSENTIAL.
Maybe try humming a song today? See if it creates a space, an opening, a portal to peace.
Report back?
Love the name of this.
HUMMMMMMM...
YES! The Hum is a powerful "Portal to Peace." A simple sound tool to reset the Monkeys in your mind. I studied vocal sound healing and edited my mentor's book. The Hum is her most magical tool to access vibrational healing in your own body. You can also hum silently in your mind for similar effect - it's how I cope with dental cleanings! Hum, Hum, more to come...