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Humming stimulates the vagus nerve, boosting stress resilience and nervous system health.

Scientific studies show humming lowers heart rate, blood pressure, and inflammation.

Humming is an ancestral healing practice, especially in Black communities, passed down through generations.

My grandmother hummed all day long. She hummed while she cooked, while she cleaned, while she worked, and while she rested. Her favorite song to hum: "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," but there were others; mostly spirituals, some hymns, and other melodies I never even learned the names of. She was a domestic worker and hummed throughout her long and grueling day, cleaning white people’s homes, cooking their food, raising their children, tending to their elderly. That work is exhausting and invisible, and includes the constant threat of unwanted advances and outright abuse. She had to protect the dignity inside of her because no one was doing it for her. She hummed through all of it. And she hummed herself to sleep at night — a soft, low sound in the dark before she went still.

As a child, I thought it was just what she did. Just her way. I thought it was regular, normal. I didn’t ask why then. But now I know why. And it's not regular and ordinary; it is one of the most remarkable things I have ever learned.

The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the human body. It runs from the brainstem down through the throat, the heart, the lungs, and into the gut; touching almost every major organ along the way. It is the primary highway of the........

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