Chanting and Toning Your Way To Health and Well Being

© Copyright 2009 Patrice Walker All rights reserved

A "Twilight Zone" Moment

I recently discovered an excellent article written by Hubber netadept called Mantra Meditation for Wealth and Prosperity. The article features the Hindu Goddess, Laksmi, with whom I am well acquainted. I had just ... and I mean literally minutes earlier ... thrown a picture of Lakshmi, that I'd received in one of those viral emails a couple of months before, in the trash. The wind had blown it off the refrigerator, and it was soggy from days of humidity. So I threw it away because I wasn't paying that much attention to it anyway. I have to admit, I hesitated at first -- perhaps intuition prompting me to keep it -- but I didn't listen and threw it away.

So when I found the article on Lakshmi so quickly after throwing her picture away, the theme song from the Twilight Zone started playing in my head. Talk about synchronicity! Long story short, not only did I reprint the picture, it's now the screen saver on my computer.

What does this have to do with chanting? The article reminded me of when I used to meet at a friend's home in a Washington, DC suburb to chant Hindu mantras with a group of like-minded people in the 90s, a decade of intense metaphysical exploration for me.

I also remembered a book that I'd purchased, again in the 90s, called Chanting: Discovering Spirit in Sound, by Robert Gass. Believe it or not, I had never read the book, but I always kept it when I went through my "book purges," thinking that one day I would read it. I'm glad I kept it because as I began reading, I started realizing just how incredibly powerful chanting is.

Chanting can be defined by taking a look at its characteristics. Chanting is characterized by:

• Repetitive vocalization: In other words, you repeat out loud one or more syllables, for example, OM or Om Shrim Maha Lakshmiyei Swaha or Go team, go!
• Intention: This simply means that you are chanting for a reason, e.g., for wealth and prosperity, peace on earth, for your team's success.
• Expanded breathing: Chanting forces you to breathe more and more deeply, one of the reasons it has so many health benefits, as you'll see below.
• Entrainment:: Because chanting creates sound waves which vibrate at various frequencies, doing it causes your body-mind to begin vibrating in alignment with the frequencies of the chant.

Chanting, therefore, is the intentional use of a repetitive vocalization that expands and deepens breathing and shifts the frequencies at which the body-mind vibrates, thereby entraining it to the frequencies of the chant.

Gass describes some of the benefits of chanting on a regular basis. Chanting can:

• Strengthen the immune system.
• Oxygenate the blood as breathing deepens.
• Lower blood pressure.
• Reduce the production of stress-related hormones like cortisol.
• Release endorphins, producing a feeling of well being.
• Increase levels of melatonin, a hormone that helps you get a good night's sleep. ¹

I knew chanting was powerful, as I'll explain below, but I had no idea it could produce such important health benefits.

For the purposes of this article, I'm just going to focus on two kinds of chanting: toning and repeating mantras.

Gass defines toning as "the intentional utterance of an elongated vowel sound. ... [It is} the vocal foundation of chant.'² The most famous example that most of us are familiar with is the repetition of OM, pronounced AUM.

Mantras, on the other hand, are sacred sounds, the repetition of which gives one direct access to specific qualities associated with Spirit or Diety, such as compassion, abundance, and unconditional love. Lakshmi's mantra for wealth and prosperity - Om Shrim Maha Lakshmiyei Swaha -- is a good example.

An easy way to get into chanting is to tone or chant OM, a sacred sound that "embodies the essence of the Universe."³ In addition to the health benefits mentioned above, chanting or toning OM is going to create strong, inner vibrations that move throughout your entire body-mind complex, creating an overall feeling of peace and well being. Your intention is simply to feel good.

1. Find a quiet space where you won't be interrupted for the time you want to devote to chanting.
2. Sit in a comfortable chair with a straight spine. Let your hands rest in your lap.
3. Close your eyes and take a few seconds to settle in.
4. Slowly breathe in through your nose. When your lungs are full, tone "OM," drawing out the vowel, then moving effortlessly into the "m" sound -- OOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM or AAAAAAUUUUUUUMMMMMMM." Extend the "m" sound until you run out of breath.
5. Breathe in again through your nose, beginning in your lower abdomen, filling the lungs from the bottom up. Then tone OM again, as you did in step 4.
6. Continue in this manner for as long as you are comfortable, focusing on how good you feel.

Pay attention to how you feel over the days and weeks ahead to determine if you are receiving any positive benefits.

I actually started chanting OM several months ago after reading that it was a way to maintain one's overall health. I also wanted to see if it would help calm my restless mind at night so I could sleep.

It definitely helped me get to sleep more easily, but it also destroyed my tolerance for alcohol. Within a few, short weeks, I started noticing how I felt after just one drink -- depressed, tired, and headache-y. I've been a social drinker since college (a long, long time ago) and love margaritas. But now, I simply can't drink them or any other kind of alcohol because I feel the negative effects within a few hours.

I can only conclude that the frequencies at which my body-mind vibrates have entrained to the frequencies of OM so that I really feel the difference when I drink. Needless to say, I haven't had a margarita in a while.

I'm certainly not advocating giving up medical treatment in favor of chanting OM. However, I believe it would make an excellent addition to medical care you might currently be receiving and is an easy and proactive way to maintain health and well being.

¹ Robert Gass, Chanting:  Discovering Spirit in Sound (New York, NY: Broadway Books, 1999) pp. 44-45

² Ibid, pg. 56.

³ Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/428173/Om