Why Singing Is Good For You

Whether you have the voice of a songbird or sound like some ball-bearings in a blender, singing can have some remarkably positive effects.

During a morning shift change at St Marcy Mercy Livonia Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, the medical staff were feeling weary. Their surgical floor had been converted into a department for coronavirus patients and spirits were low.

Nurse Lori Marie Key was asked if she would sing Amazing Grace for her colleagues during the morning briefing. So she did. As her voice soared, one of her fellow nurses filmed her, put it online and it went viral.

There was something about the solidarity and togetherness of that moment that personifies a lot about the power of song. But it wasn’t just something abstract and ethereal happening, there are scientific reasons for why singing feels good.

Perhaps that’s why, as most of the world went into lockdown to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, there were countless examples of people turning to song as solace. Italians belted arias from their balconies, famous musicians performed mini concerts from their living rooms and choirs took their sessions online to become virtual virtuosos.

When we sing, large parts of our brain “light up” with activity, says Sarah Wilson, a clinical neuropsychologist and head of the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She led a study which looked at how the brain reacts when we sing by giving volunteers of varying vocal ability MRI scans as they warbled.

“There is a singing network in the brain [which is] quite broadly distributed,” Wilson says. When we speak, the hemisphere of the brain dealing with language lights up, as we might expect. When we sing, however, both sides of the brain spark into life.

“We also see involvement of the emotion networks of the brain,” adds Wilson. Regions that control the movements we need to produce sounds and articulation also light up.

Body and mind

The physical exertion involved in singing – filling of our lungs, the firm control of our vocal chords, the movements of our mouth and body – is among the reasons why it can boost our mood. Singing is an aerobic exercise which sees the release of endorphins, the brain’s ‘feel-good’ chemicals, says Baishali Mukherjee, the Southeast Asia regional liason for the World Federation of Music Therapy.

“Endorphins [are] related to an overall lifted feeling of happiness, it gives a feeling of euphoria so it’s all associated with a reduction in stress,” she says. “In any situation whether it is under stress or [with] any physical ailments, illness, psychological deprivation, music has the potential to affect our body and mind.” 

“There is evidence that, in general, singing in a group enhances our sense of empathy and social connection,” says Wilson. “We see this at football clubs… (and) people [singing] in congregations at church. It’s a community-building activity because we’re united in our voice.”

As well as endorphins racing through your body, another hormone released when we sing is oxytocin. Mukherjee explains that oxytocin has a powerful effect in enhancing a feeling of connectedness between people.

“It is often related to breastfeeding as well as sexual activity,” she says. “There is also a very strong area of research that supports that this particular neuropeptide….is believed to play a role in increasing bonds and trust between people.” (Although some researchers doubt oxytocin’s role in trust, more recent research has shown it can influence how much value we place on information from others.)

One voice

This power to bond people together makes singing particularly potent at a time when an unprecedented global situation has left many of us with glimpses of unfamiliar and uneasy emotions.

“Song or music is able to capture something that goes beyond what we would normally be able to articulate in our rational, logical minds,” says Jerome Lewis, an anthropologist at University College London. “It provides an opportunity for exploring joyful, difficult, sad – all sorts of different emotional spaces which are sometimes difficult to access through a literal, logical, sequential series of words that build up.”

Credit: BBC

Why The Humanity Post?

The World Health Organisation has named depression as the greatest cause of suffering worldwide. In the U.S., 1 out of 5 deals with depression or anxiety. For youth, that number increases to 1 in 3.

The good news is that 40% of our happiness can be influenced by intentional thoughts and actions, leading to life changing habits. It’s this 40% that The Humanity Post  help to impact.