I came to meditation the way a lot of people do: not through enlightenment, but through friction. A busy mind, a tired body, and that low-grade hum of modern life that never quite shuts off. I didn’t arrive seeking mysticism. I wanted quiet. What surprised me was that quiet sometimes came wrapped in sound—specifically, the long, resonant syllable we call Om (often spelled Aum, sometimes rendered as ohm).
At first, it felt awkward. Making a sound while trying to still the mind seemed backwards. Silence, I assumed, was the goal. But meditation has a habit of undoing assumptions, and Om turned out to be less noise and more tool—a tuning fork for attention.
Here’s the plain truth: meditation works, but not because it’s magical. It works because it changes how attention behaves. The mind is a pattern-making machine. Give it nothing, and it will manufacture something—usually anxiety, memory, or anticipation. Give it a simple, steady anchor, and it settles. Breath is the classic anchor. Sound can be another.
When I began incorporating Om, I noticed something subtle but consistent. The vibration mattered as much as the sound itself. Chanting Om isn’t just auditory; it’s physical. The chest, throat, jaw, and even the sinuses participate. That vibration becomes a bodily reference point. Attention spreads out of the head and into the body, where thoughts have a harder time running unchecked.
There’s also a neurological angle, stripped of mysticism. Slow, extended vocalization naturally lengthens the exhale. Longer exhales activate the parasympathetic nervous system—the part responsible for calm, digestion, and recovery. In other words, the body gets the memo before the mind does. Calm follows physiology, not the other way around.
Does Om have special properties beyond that? Historically, it’s been described as a primordial sound, a symbol of unity, the vibration of existence itself. You can take that literally, metaphorically, or not at all. I’m less interested in cosmic claims than in results. The results are clear: repetition simplifies attention, vibration grounds awareness, and rhythm stabilizes breathing. That combination works.
Should making the Om sound be considered part of meditation? I’d say this plainly: it should be available, not mandatory. Silence is powerful. So is breath. So is walking, staring at a candle, or listening to rain hit a roof. Om is one doorway among many. For some people, sound is distracting. For others—especially those whose minds race—it’s a relief. The sound gives the mind something honest to hold onto instead of chewing on itself.
What I’ve learned is this: meditation isn’t about erasing thought. It’s about changing your relationship to it. Om helps by filling the mental foreground with something simple, embodied, and finite. When the sound fades, what’s left is often a quieter mind than the one that started.
I don’t chant every time I meditate. Sometimes silence is exactly right. But when the world feels loud inside my head, I don’t fight it anymore. I meet it with a sound that slows me down, pulls me into my breath, and reminds me—physically—that calm is not an idea. It’s a state you can practice.
And sometimes, it hums.