SA-C4-4 SCIS&ISIS2006 @ Tokyo, Japan (September 20-24, 2006)

Does Humming Sound Play Healing Role in

Bhramari Pranayama
Rajkishore Prasad, Fumitoshi Matsuno
Man Machine Interface Lab., University of Electro Communication, Japan
E-mail:{kishore,matsuno@hi.mce.uec.ac.jp}

Abstract—This paper investigates role of humming sound in the

healing process by Bhramari Pranayama (BP) which has been
recommended, in many literatures on yoga, for removing stress
and healing many mental abnormalities and has also been claimed
to be recuperative for the same by many practitioners.
Pranayama is a Sanskrit word which literally means a yogic act
performed for controlling flow of vital energy in the body and
mind. One of the main acts during doing BP is that subject
imitates humming sound of bumble bee while exhaling. The
analysis of the humming sound produced during pranayama (b) Common bee
shows a little variation in pitch confined within lower frequencies
(a) Bumble bee
with concentration of energy in the lower frequency bands. Nasal Fig.1 Showing black bumble and common bee. Bumble
formants are also present. The humming sound has also vibrato. bee can be distinguished by furs on body which is absent
It is hypothesized that such sound produces not only bone in the common bee.
conducted audition but also vibration in cranium and changes in
the brainwave patterns leading to relaxation and healings.

Index Terms— yoga, humming sound, vibro-acoustic,

bhramari pranayama.

I. INTRODUCTION

T HIS paper contains report on preliminary studies on our

project to develop artificial system for mental relaxation
based on speech signal patterns of bumble bee. So, at
present we cannot say that it comes under biomimetics but our
ultimate aim is to reach there. The term Yoga needs no
Fig.2 One of the easiest body posture for doing Bhramari
introduction. It is well known and practiced all over the world.
Pranayama. Subject hums steadily like a bumble bee
Yoga has its origin in Indian civilization, nearly 6,000 years
while keeping attention at third eye point.
ago as a part of Indian healing Science known as Aryuveda. The
earliest record of yoga is available in Indian oldest ritual books
Bhramari is a Sanskrit word which means like bumble bee, as
known as the Veda dating back about 4000 BC, however, it has
shown in Fig.1(a), and this pranayama got its name because in
been argued by many that yoga emerged as fully developed
BP one has to produce or imitate humming sound of the bumble
health practice from 500 B.C[1],[2]. There had not been
bee while strictly exhaling through nasal cavity keeping oral
scientific studies, like nowadays, on the yoga in the deep past
cavity closed at the lips. While doing so eyelids are shut down,
and thus knowledge about benefits and effects of the yoga has
ears are kept closed by fingers or ear flap and concentration is
been based entirely on the direct observations for thousands of
kept at the third eye point as shown in Fig.2. There are also
years and has been documented so. However, in the modern era
other ways of doing BP, however, variation is only with body
scientific studies have been started on the yoga and results in
postures and production of humming sound during exhalation
the most of the cases have been found as per subjective claims
and inhalation. Descriptions of different ways of doing BP can
made by the practitioners [3],[4],[5]. Pranayama is also a type
be found in the related texts. BP has been found to be effective
of yoga popularly known as Hath Yoga. According to
in controlling blood pressure both high and low, reducing
Hathyoga Pradipika [6], Hath yoga also leads to Raja Yoga or
tension, bringing relaxation, improving condition of ear, throat,
Power Yoga and had also been originated in the Indian
nose and sinus, reducing cerebral tension, hypertension,
civilization thousands of years back. The Sanskrit word
anxiety and in healing many other mental problems claimed by
Pranayama contains two meaningful segments namely Prana
different subjects [6],[7],[8]. However, to the best of our
(this means vital force, air) and Yama (this means control). So
knowledge, no scientific study on BP has been made so far
pranayama literally means a yogic act performed for
except in [7] in which author has verified scientifically some of
controlling flow of energy in the body and mind. Bhramari
the subjective claims without touching the mechanism acting
Pranayama (BP) is one of the popular types of pranayama.
behind the BP in bringing different changes in the mind and

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body. In [7], it has also been reported that BP is very much
useful for the pregnant women and preparation for labor.
BP is different from other pranayamas in the fact that in this
pranayama acoustic vibration is produced by humming sound
along with yogic body posture. The acoustic vibration might be
playing key role in producing effect of BP by vibrating brain
and whole head. In the old literature, it has been mentioned that
BP is supposed to activate the third eye point, the philosophical
eye of wisdom, as concentration is held here during BP. The
third eye point is related with pineal gland and has been
described as the center of imagination, memory, concentration,
intuition, deeper knowledge, and ability to visualize the things
[9],[10]. In this paper our main aim is to investigate what are
the characteristics of humming sound produced during BP and
why has it been recommended to hum like a black bumble bee
not like an ordinary bee and make some research hypotheses
for future investigation with modern scientific techniques.
Rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section II
humming sound and its clinical importance has been described.
Section III contains analysis of the humming sound produced
during BP. Section IV contains general discussion and related
research issues. Section V contains conclusions and future
work which is followed by references.
sound. The OM sound is again from Veda and has special
significance as reported in [16]. There are also another ways of
making humming sound by pronouncing nasal [n], however,
there is difference in co-articulation and thus spectral contents
of sounds. During pronouncing nasal [m] sound, oral cavity is
closed at lips and resonant frequency component of oral cavity
is not present in the sound outputted at nostrils. While saying
[m] the oral cavity also resonates but it is closed at lips and
while saying [n] the length of oral cavity is shortened by
specific positioning of the tongue of the speaker.
0.2656
0
-0.3906
0 0.24 0.48 0.72 0.96 1.2
Time (s)
(a) Speech signal of the common bee

II. HUMMING SOUND AND ITS CLINICAL IMPORTANCE

In the related texts on BP, it has been instructed to imitate (b) Pitch of the sound of common bee.
humming sound of black bumble bee while performing it. It
seems very natural to say why to hum like a bumble bee and not
like a common bee (shown in Fig.1b)? The humming sound of
bumble bee is different from the ordinary bee, however,
mechanism of sound production is same. The mechanism of
sound production in bee has been discovered much before by
E.F. Woods and Wenner [11],[12] and has been proposed that
bees produce sound by pulsed air stream through seven pairs of
spiracles uniformly distributed over abdomen and thorax.
These all are tuned to same frequency through muscles causing (c) Spectrogram of sound of common bee
wings to flap. The waveform of sound of ordinary bee and
bumble bee are shown in Fig.2a and Fig.3a respectively. It can Fig.2 Sound with its pitch and spectrogram of common
be imbued from their pitch plots that the sound of bumble bee is bee.(http://www.junglewalk.com/sound/).
much steadier and not wavering like that of the common bee.
The similar results for the bee sounds has also been reported in
[13] under various conditions. In [14], it has been reported that
the bumble bee can sound for longer time. As per texts on BP,
the humming sound production in BP should also be steady,
prolonged and produced with less effort. The spectrograms and
power spectrums of sounds of bumble and common bee are
shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3 which revel that sound of bumble bee
is enriched in low frequency components and its energy is (a) Speech waveform of bumble bee
concentrated in the lower frequency bands. Fig.4 compares
spectral power of the sound of bumble bee and common bee. It
can be imbued from Fig.5 that major part of the total energy in
the sound of bumble bee is contained within smaller spectral
range (up to 800 Hz) in comparison to that of common bee.
In human speech production mechanism is different and
production of humming sound like that of bumble bee needs
practice to control pitch that depends on many factors [15]. It
has been recommended in the texts on BP that the humming (b) Pitch of the bumble bee sound.
similar to bee can be produced by sustaining [m] part of the OM

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(c) Spectrogram of bumble bee sound.
Fig.3 Sound with its pitch and spectrogram of the bumble
bee.
Fig.4 Power Spectrum of sound signal of common bee and
bumble bee sound.
Fig.5 Comparison of total energy (TE) content up to
different frequency band in the sound of common bee and
bumble bee.
Humming by saying sustained [m] will have lower first formant
frequency while for [n] it will be higher [17]. Thus production
of humming with sustained nasalization of [m] will be more in
correspondence with the humming sound of the bumble bee.
The clinical importance of humming sound has been
investigated in many recent research reports. In [18],[19] it has
been shown that humming through nasal airways improves
Nitric Oxide (NO) ventilation which is good for clearing and
maintaining good health of sinus. However, these experiments
were not with BP but are related with the humming sound
similar to that produced during BP. In the many previous
studies, it has been reported that the paranasal sinuses are filled
with NO which maintains sterility of the sinus cavity due to its
antiviral and bacteriotoxic properties. Thus exchange of NO
with sinus cavity is essential for the healthy condition of sinus.
Often surgical treatment of blocked sinus is done to improve
such ventilations. Fig.6 shows amount of nitric oxide output in
one exhalation with and without humming. A single exhalation
with humming takes out more than 86% of the total sinus
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volume. However, this effect depends on the spectrum of the
humming sound. In [19], it has been reported that that the sinus
cavity works as the Helmholtz resonator and exchange of NO
from it depends on displacement of plugged air in the neck
(ostia) of the resonator (sinus cavity). The resonant frequency
of the Helmholtz resonator depends on velocity of sound, cross
section area and effective length of the air column plugged into
the neck (ostia) and the volume of the resonator (here sinus
cavity).The resonant frequency of the human sinus (acting as
Helmholtz resonator) varies somewhere between 600Hz to
1KHz. It has been reported in [19] that the maximum exchange
of NO depends on the exciting frequency (humming sound)
and if it is very near to resonant frequency the exchange of NO
is maximum. In summary the humming sound produced will be
effective in producing better ventilation of NO if it has low
frequency components. In the next section, we will see that the
humming sound of BP has low frequency components in
domination that better explains healing capacity of BP for the
sinus problems. The acoustic vibration produced by humming
sound is transmitted into the other parts of head too. However,
the transmission of acoustic wave in head is not well
understood and very few studies had been made in this
direction. In the BP, since ear is closed by fingers the auditory
effect is reduced, bone conducted sound is contributing to
audition, and vibratory effect is increased. In [21],[22] it has
been reported that resonance frequency of human skull is
800Hz-1.2KHz.The contribution of vibration effect produced
by humming sound in relaxation is not known but in the past
years there have been many investigations and formulation of
postulates for the use and working of sound as the medicine
[24],[25] . In this context humming sound in BP can also be
seen as playing key role in bringing positive effects on mind
and body as the humming sound in BP is highly active and
kinetic part. The other distinction of BP from other pranayamas
is that it is quick in effect. It has been documented that do BP
and go in the seventh heaven. It is in contradiction to the
general concept that yoga is not like a quick fix and it takes
time to bring effect. In BP effects follow immediately.
Fig.6 Nitric Oxide (NO) output in exhalation with
humming (shown by dotted line) and without humming
(shown by solid line) (With courtesy taken from reference
[20].
 III. ANALYSIS OF HUMMING SOUND OF BP
We assume that the humming sound is playing key role in
bringing positive effects. In order to make preliminary studies
on the humming sound produced during BP, we have collected
humming sound from three regular practitioners (two male and
a female) of BP by placing microphones near nostrils. The
subjects made humming sound by the sustained pronunciation
of [m] sound (as the last part of OM) sound. The sampling
frequency was kept at 8000 Hz. The waveform of humming (d)
sound from male subject is shown in Fig. 7. The [O] part and
sustained [M] part of the waveforms were separated manually
and for a subject these are shown in Fig.8 (a) and (b). The pitch
of the sound is plotted in the Fig.8(c). The pitch was extracted
using autocorrelation based algorithm. The pitch during
humming part (mm…sound) shows very little variation. The
pitch graph in the case of female subject has been found with
the similar trends with pitch at higher value, which is natural.
The power spectrum and spectrogram of the sound are also
shown in Fig 8(d) and (e) from where it can be imbued that (e)
energy is concentrated in lower frequency bands similar to that Fig.8 (a) 'O' part of the humming (b)'MM…'.part of the
of bumble bee. The concentration of energy in lower frequency humming (c)Pitch of the humming sound of Fig.7. (d)
components can be useful in making better ventilation of NO Power spectral Density (PSD) of humming sound of shown
from sinus cavities which explains usefulness of BP for it. in Fig.7 and (e) Spectrogram of the humming sound.

Fig. 9. PSD of humming sound during BP with closed ear

Fig. 7 Humming sound produced by sustaining [m] part and opened ear.
of the OM.

As mentioned earlier that during BP subject has to close ears by

finger. The PSD of humming with and without closing ears are
almost same. This has been shown in the Fig.9. However,
subjective feeling of each subject is that internal audition is
suppressed by external audition with open ears. The closure of
ear makes bone conducted sound dominating in audition and
vibrational effect of humming is felt strongly. It is argued that
when ears are closed the sound pressure level of bone
(a) 'O' part. (b)'MM…'.part.
conducted sound increases in the inner ear which might be
giving stronger vibration and in the open ear condition the bone
conducted sound is getting out through ear weakening vibration.
However, this is a matter of experimental verification which
has not been done in the present studies.

IV. GENERAL DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH ISSUES

This is precursor paper with preliminary results on the yogic act
BP in which human is imitating sound of an insect. It is
(c) effective in abolishing many mental problems of everyday life.
Our final aim is to develop an acoustic system for the
challenged people to provide mental tonic in form of sound
imitating BP. At present, we do not have much explanation for

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the effect of BP. There are many things involved in BP such as
the role of eye closure, body posture etc. which are unexplored.
Here we have taken one of the very active sub-processes of BP
which is humming like bumble bee and have tried to find
similarities with the humming sound of the bumble bee.
However, even with found similarities we cannot explain how
humming is working in bringing soothing effects? Unless
transmission of sound starting from vocal fold and nasal cavity
into head is not explored, nothing concrete can be said. The
effect of vibration produced by humming sound on the brain is
also not known and researches in this direction will help in
explaining mechanism behind which brings effect of BP. In the
light of postulates made in [24], it seems convincing that
humming sound of BP produces massaging effect on Brain and
accelerates process of diffusion by which waste products from
brain are removed. Brain is forted by Blood Brain Barrier
(BBB) which does not allow exit of waste products very easily
and also there is no lymphatic system in the brain cell to
remove its waste products. The waste products are removed by
the process of diffusion which can be enhanced by the
vibration. Like other parts of the body, we cannot apply
stretching exercises on brain and hence vibration is good
alternative for it. Vibrations by ones own voice may not be
harmful for brain tissue. Also, human skull has been found to
work as a booster for the low frequency sounds and as a damper
for the high frequency sounds [23]. Thus humming sound with
low frequency content can be better for producing better
vibro-acoustic effects as low frequency sounds can penetrate
deeper.
Further, quantitative measurements are required to be done to
understand and explain effects of BP so that it can become a
cross cultural and transcontinental health care practice.
Keeping in view clinical use and development of artificial
acoustic vibrators (a biomimetic approach), comparative
studies on different humming styles, duration of humming,
effect of artificial and natural humming sounds on brainwave
patterns, are essential to study. Although, sound wave and
brainwave phenomena are different but their interaction is very
common experience e.g. when somebody comes to listen tune
of choice, his/her legs begin to vibrate with tune. Isn't it
interaction of sound wave and brainwave that causes motor
section of brain to produce rhythmic actuation of legs?
However, in this direction a pioneer work was done by R.A.
Monroe in 1975 who discovered alteration in level of
consciousness by binaural beat and developed system known as
Hemi-Sync auditory-guidance system [26] and his idea got
well acceptance [27]. We doubt similar binaural effect in case
of BP too. The basis of such assumption is that when ears are
closed audition effect is felt only through bone conducted
sound. The pitch track of humming sound, shown in Fig.8(c) is
not quite constant rather it has temporal variation which is
called vibrato component. These vibrato components are in the
very low frequency range of 3Hz-8Hz and can produce similar
effect as of binaural beat phenomena. The another supporting
fact is based on results reported in [21] that bone conduction of
sound in skull suffers lateralization effect which might be
leading to different stimulation of both cochlea either in level
or in time or in both. Role of sub-harmonic components of
humming sound can also be put under suspicion in entertaining
low frequency brainwaves. The natural frequencies related
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with different phenomena of our mind and body ranges from
very low to very high [28]. The interaction and transmission of
acoustic vibrations to other part of bodies during BP cannot
also be denied. However, such assumptions are subject to
experimental verifications.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
The preliminary results on the humming sound produced
during BP and that of bumble bee shows correspondence in
spectral contents, which has been established in this paper. We
are interested in discovering the internal mechanism of BP that
brings positive effects on mind and body and design a
biomimetic system that can give benefits of BP to challenged
people like dumb. Next we are doing Electroencephalographic
(EEG) recording experiments to quantify effect of BP on
brainwave patterns.
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