Chant out loud

Chant out loud

Chanting is one of my favorite practices.  I have loved it for years now but it didn’t start that way. In the beginning the first time a teacher offered a chanting practice I picked up my mat and left. But once I discovered Kundalini Yoga where chanting is an integral practice – chanting became a regular part of my daily life. Music is a form of medicine and our nervous system is particularly tuned to the act of using our voice.  This connection is due to the wandering nerve, also known as the vagus nerve or the 10th cranial nerve pair. This nerve innervates the vocal cords and the muscles of the throat (along with the heart, lungs, diaphragm, and digestive track – hence its “wandering” nickname).  A sensory and motor nerve the vagus nerve both gives information to the body from the brain and takes information from the body back to the brain.  It in many ways sets the tone for our overall resilience and in fact a healthy vagus nerve is one considered to have good tone. Chanting can seem intimidating but in actually it is just singing a repetitive verse or word (mantra).  It may seem boring but there is known power in repetition – repetition can in fact relax us. This scientific reality was quantified by Dr. Benson at Harvard in the 70’s when he discovered the relaxation response by studying meditators who used mantra. The relaxation response, rest and digest response or parasympathetic activation (the peace part of your autonomic nervous system) is a zone of healing, peace and calm that is available to...

Singing in the Sunrise

I always loved singing but when I first started with yoga I hated chanting. HATED it.  In my world chanting was not singing – at that point in my practice my personal comfort zone was so narrow and tight that I am amazed I could breathe. Looking back I think it was the delivery of my first teachers that turned me off so much. In the classes I attended chanting seemed tortured, usually the teacher was loud and everyone else was whispering.  We were all uncomfortable and for years I thought it was the lamest most antiseptic thing ever. Sometimes I would get so frustrated by chanting in a class that I would simply roll up my mat and go. I was years into my practice before I attended my first Kirtan and my belief about chanting shifted. Kirtan is a beautiful practice of call and response chants.  I realized then that chanting is uplifting, it is freeing – my first Kirtan was absolutely opposite of every experience I had had with chanting until that moment.  I fell in love with the practice – in LOVE. Singing as healer is as old as human kind.  It is part of every tradition.  Like songs chants can be short and sweet or long and elaborate.  By nature chants are repetitive and repetition is a known doorway to the meditative mind. Chanting is an energetic expression and a powerful tool of healing.  Now, I use it daily and infuse it into my world by chanting while driving, or cooking, or showering. I interweave it into my classes and try to inspire my...