Making sounds: ‘The Voo Sound’
A tool to settle your nervous system
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week here in the UK. So in a series of short articles I’m sharing a set of tools that can help to resolve symptoms arising from anxiety, stress, shock, and trauma by helping you to settle your nervous system.
I shared an initial set of tools in an article I published in mental health awareness week last year.
- This year’s first tool — ‘centring in 3D’ — is here
- the second — the ‘physiological sigh’ — is here
- the third — containing touch — is here
- the fourth — ‘the voo sound’ — is below, and
- the fifth — holding your anchor — is here.
Singing, chanting, and humming have been part of religious and spiritual practices since probably forever, certainly for thousands of years. I’ve certainly found all three practices helpful. Making sounds and vibrations with your own voice can have a soothing effect on the body and can also be a means to discharge nervous system activation.
The voo sound is a favourite tool of Peter Levine, who developed Somatic Experiencing (SE).
The idea is that we focus our attention on our breath by doing some deep belly breathing, and in a deep fog horn voice exhale with the word, “voooooo”.
Making the sound may feel strange at first (plenty of us were self conscious when we first practised it on the SE professional training), but it is an effective way to help settle your nervous system and so induce feelings of calm. Here’s how you do it:
- Find a comfy place to sit, where you’ll also be comfortable to make a sound. Place your feet on the floor.
- Slowly inhale through your nose into your belly.
- When your inhalation feels complete, pause momentarily.
- On the out breath, gently make a long “voooo” sound (the ‘oo’ sound rhymes with ‘you’), sustaining the sound throughout the entire exhalation until it feels complete. Allow the sound to vibrate/resonate in your body and feel the sensations as it reverbarates.
- Wait for the next breath to come in by itself, allowing it to slowly fill your belly and chest.
- Repeat this natural inhaling and then exhaling with “voooo” one to three times.
- Then just rest, noticing any body sensations or feelings.
Peter Levine covers the voo sound in detail in his book In an Unspoken Voice (pages 125–127) and demonstrates it in this video and elsewhere online. (This video and other free experiential videos from Peter are available here).
