Vibrations created from chanting Om can help clear your sinuses and
ward off infections.

By Alisa Bauman

Yogis have traditionally chanted the mantra "Om" to help with
focusing the mind. However, this simple and most pri-mal of chants
may serve an important side benefit, particularly during winter
months: The sound vibrations may help keep your sinuses healthy.
This news comes from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden,
where the researchers Jon Lundberg and Eddie Weitzberg discovered
that humming can help to ventilate and open the sinuses. When they
tested 10 men, they found that humming increased nitric oxide levels
fifteenfold, compared to quiet exhalations without sound. The
exhalations of people with healthy sinuses tend to have high nitric
oxide levels, indicating that more air is able to flow between the
sinuses and the nose.

The two researchers defined humming simply as exhaling with sound
while the mouth is closed; they say that chanting "Om" produces the
same effects. Chanting and humming both create sound vibrations,
which encourage air to move back and forth between your sinus
membranes and nasal passages. This air movement then opens tiny
ducts, or ostia, that connect your nose to your sinuses, allowing
your sinuses to drain properly.

Your sinuses consist of four pairs of air-filled cavities behind and
around your nose and your eyes. They filter the air you breathe,
keeping germs from getting into your lungs. To combat germs, such as
the viruses that cause the common cold, your sinus membranes swell.
Sometimes in response to these germs your sinuses can swell so that
the ostia become blocked. Once these are blocked, the mucus cannot
drain properly. Bacteria begin to breed inside the sinuses, causing
a condition which is known as sinusitis.

Sinusitis affects approximately 37 million Americans each year;
numbers are climbing in step with air pollution and antibiotic
resistance. Common symptoms include facial pain and colored nasal
discharge. Once you develop a case of sinusitis, you usually require
antibiotics to cure it. However, daily humming or "Om" chanting may
prevent such an infection from actually taking hold, according to
Lundberg, associate professor of physiology and pharmacology at
Karolinska Institute.

"It is logical that daily periods of humming would be beneficial,"
he says. "The sinuses are effectively ventilated by humming.
Previous research shows that poor sinus ventilation increases the
risk for sinusitis."

In addition to daily chanting, you can also use a humidifier, as
warm, moist air helps to lubricate your nasal and sinus passages and
to thin mucus secretions. Many practitioners of Ayurveda also
partake in a daily saline nasal washing using a neti pot to clean
their nasal passages.