HEALTH

Playing didjeridu is good for you.

Cycle breathing, which involves diaphragm pressure to expel air and inhaling only via the nose, is similar to yoga breath exercises. People who take up playing didj notice an improved sense of smell and decrease in respiratory infections. Contaminants are caught in the sinuses, and air breathed in via the nose is closer to body temperature by the time it reaches the lungs. Some asthmatics find didjeridu playing alleviates their symptoms as cycle breathing is similar to the breathing exercises developed by the Russian physician Alexi Buteyko.

Didj resonates a continuous tone in your head, nullifying external sounds. When observing stationary objects while playing they appear to vibrate, a consequence of the sound vibrating the head. The vibration affect is more apparent when observing a digital clock or video monitor and is stronger on the higher tones. In a meditative mood, slide down to the lower tones around C and for a vigorous feel slide the bone to higher keys. By breathing the beat the body becomes a rhythm organism, and the breath a play thing like a breath dance or trance.

Regardless of whether the rhythm is fast or slow cycle breathing induces a euphoric feeling in the players mind and body. Blowing fast rhythms like the ‘wobble’ means breathing 120 breaths per minute, which far exceeds the normal rate of 18 breaths per minute. It is often assumed the far away look of the didjeridu player immersed in ‘didj euphoria’ is due to hyperventilation, which is a dizzy sensation familiar to people who have used deep breaths to get a fire burning. Hyperventilation or over breathing is not due to the body taking in too much oxygen, it is the result of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the lungs falling below its normal concentration of 6.5% of air. However, didj players do not hyperventilate because they do not completely exhale, or else the sound would stop. Also the rhythmic cycle breathing is a controlled action in contrast to the spasmodic style of over breathing.

Playing didj like any musical sound can be a mood emulator for you, to be played vigorously when excited or smoothly when relaxed. The vibration is made by your body and it travels along the didj and back into your body. Endogenously, as in meditation, it vibrates a rhythmic drone with the conscious mind on holiday. Exogenously didj creates a continuous rhythm ruled by a breath pattern to make an atmosphere so solid it is likened to a ground sound.