Hum a tune : Keep your balance

Subject: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 May 10 - 02:14 AM

As I was trying to navigate my way to the PC with a full to brim cup of coffee this morning, I remembered that I used to hum a tune to get ice trays to the freezer without spilling water. I remembered hearing it somewhere or perhaps reading it.

I have tried Google with "humming and balance" and "humming to keep balance" and "humming to keep from spilling drink while walking" but I can find no documentation for this. I know it works.

Just wondering if anyone else knows and uses this trick and whether they have scientific explanation for why it works. Also whether it would be useful for people who suffer from balance problems re inner ear.

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 May 10 - 02:49 AM

Oh! I found this on site about Parkinson's disease.

snip

Sound and vision methods
When you freeze, decide which foot you are going to move first and then simply say 'One, two, three, step', 'ready, steady, go', or a similar phrase. Attempt to restart walking on the trigger word 'step' or 'go'. This can be done silently in your mind, spoken aloud by yourself or said by someone who is with you when you freeze. Whichever method you use, a clear commanding tone of voice will be the most effective to get you restarted.
Other strategies to try include using rhythm(again, either in your mind or aloud) by singing or humming a tune as you walk.

end snip

Now that is interesting. Still looking for scientific explanation of why humming helps with balance.

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: Stringsinger
Date: 30 May 10 - 12:53 PM

Virginia, this may or may not have something to do with your thread.
It's really interesting though.





Singing 'rewires' damaged brain
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News, San Diego

Teaching stroke patients to sing "rewires" their brains, helping them recover their speech, say scientists.

By singing, patients use a different area of the brain from the area involved in speech.

If a person's "speech centre" is damaged by a stroke, they can learn to use their "singing centre" instead.

Researchers presented these findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego.

An ongoing clinical trial, they said, has shown how the brain responds to this "melodic intonation therapy".

Gottfried Schlaug, a neurology professor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, led the trial.

The therapy is already established as a medical technique. Researchers first used it when it was discovered that stroke patients with brain damage that left them unable to speak were still able to sing.

Professor Schlaug explained that his was the first study to combine this therapy with brain imaging - "to show what is actually going on in the brain" as patients learn to sing their words.

Making connections

Most of the connections between brain areas that control movement and those that control hearing are on the left side of the brain.

"But there's a sort of corresponding hole on the right side," said Professor Schlaug.

"For some reason, it's not as endowed with these connections, so the left side is used much more in speech.

"If you damage the left side, the right side has trouble [fulfilling that role]."

But as patients learn to put their words to melodies, the crucial connections form on the right side of their brains.

Previous brain imaging studies have shown that this "singing centre" is overdeveloped in the brains of professional singers.

During the therapy sessions, patients are taught to put their words to simple melodies.

Professor Schlaug said that after a single session, a stroke patients who was are not able to form any intelligible words learned to say the phrase "I am thirsty" by combining each syllable with the note of a melody.

The patients are also encouraged to tap out each syllable with their hands. Professor Schlaug said that this seemed to act as an "internal pace-maker" which made the therapy even more effective.

"Music might be an alternative medium to engage parts of the brain that are otherwise not engaged," he said.

Brain sounds

Dr Aniruddh Patel from the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, said the study was an example of the "explosion in research into music and the brain" over the last decade.

"People sometimes ask where in the brain music is processed and the answer is everywhere above the neck," said Dr Patel.

"Music engages huge swathes of the brain - it's not just lighting up a spot in the auditory cortex."

Dr Nina Kraus, a neuroscientist from Northwestern University in Chicago, also studies the effects of music on the brain.

In her research, she records the brain's response to music using electrodes on the scalp.

This work has enabled her to "play back" electrical activity from brain cells as they pick up sounds.

"Neurons work with electricity - so if you record the electricity from the brain you can play that back through speakers and hear how the brain deals with sounds," she explained.

Dr Kraus has also discovered that musical training seems to enhance the ability to perform other tasks, such as reading.

She said that the insights into how the brain responds to music provided evidence that musical training was an important part of children's education.

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 May 10 - 01:06 PM

Here's another somewhat Related Article. I've seen reports about singing and stroke patients and Parkinson's patients using music for movement. It's pretty neat.

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 May 10 - 02:26 PM

I attended a workshop once with a member of the Flanders Recorder Quartet. (You can find them on YouTube to see how talented they are.) He said that the best way to mark time in music is to tap the feet, because in walking we take regular steps of equal length, and we have done so thousands of times.

He also said to mark time using first one foot and then the other, not just by tapping one toe. "Otherwise you will make a mistake."

Surely if feet can send a message to the body to help with making steady music, then making music must help send a message to the feet to help with making steady steps.

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 31 May 10 - 08:53 AM

I guess my trick of humming to keep from spilling follows the principles of rhythm and movement, especially re large motor skills. Does anyone else do it?

Using both feet to keep timing right in rhythm is spot on.

That stuff on stroke and language redevelopment is fascinating.   

I wonder if humming would help people with vertigo.

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 May 10 - 09:18 AM

I haven't done it, but I'm going to try it.

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: Melissa
Date: 31 May 10 - 01:32 PM

I talked to my vertigo-unbalanced friend last night and suggested that she try humming instead of falling over. Apparently, women in her family don't hum to carry carefully..but she's willing to try it.

My humming for toting too-full stuff is not tuneful. Is yours, Tam?

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 May 10 - 03:19 PM

I don't do it, but may try. I do catch myself doing a soft kind of singing whilst in the shower. Not sure why, but that an ear bug starts up and I have to voice it.:-) I'll pay attention to see if it helps with balance as I do get a bit wobbly in the shower if I am not careful.

kat

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 31 May 10 - 03:22 PM

Typically I hum as tunefully as I sing. What I found is that I must have a fixed song to hum. If I am randomly humming then it doesn't work. This must be because a known tune will have a set rhythm to it. You brain knows what's coming next and times the body to go with it.

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: Old Grizzly
Date: 31 May 10 - 06:14 PM

movement and song just go together - long marches to a simple well known refrain are so much easier

That speech and singing involve different links and areas in the brain is born out by all those who are afflicted with a stutter but who can sing clearly.

.... oh, and I stop humming when I fall over Q.E.D. ??? ;O)

Dave

Subject: RE: Hum a tune : Keep your balance
From: GUEST,jeanine
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 05:56 PM

I have menier's disease which comes with vertigo at times. I heard on the doctor's show channel 2 that humming can help sinus pressure. Hasn't been long enough to tell but I feel like the humming is reducing some pressure.