Singing a song is one of the most beneficial things you can do to flourish! Hundreds of studies have found that music, including singing, is beneficial to health and well-being. Singing is a wonderful way to express your thoughts and feelings, or just to entertain yourself or others. It doesn’t cost anything, and you can carry a song in your pocket or your heart, anywhere you may go. “Sing, sing a song / Sing out loud, sing out strong…”
The Carpenters sang about this in their popular recording of Sing (1972-3), originally written by Joe Raposo for Sesame Street.
Singing is good for your body.
- It stimulates your immunity by increasing levels of Immunoglobin A.
- It encourages the release of endorphins which reduce pain.
- It lowers blood pressure and increases blood oxygen saturation levels.
- It increases your lung capacity. When you sing, you breathe deeply and repeatedly contract your respiratory muscles, which is good for your cardiovascular and pulmonary systems. This may be especially helpful for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and other medical conditions that restrict breathing, and may help you to release anxiety and transition to a more relaxed, restful state.
- A 2020 study even suggested that singing (when you are awake) may help alleviate obstructive sleep apnea!
Per country music star Willie Nelson, “When you’re singing, you’re using extra muscles, and it requires a lot of exercise and breathing. You can’t do that if you’re a sissy. If I have any fitness advice for people, I’d tell them to sing more. It’s good therapy, too.” [1]
Singing is a form of physical exercise.
- When you sing, you are doing something athletic. Whether you are a professional singer filling a theater or arena with the sound of your voice or a lay person singing softly for your own pleasure, singing is a complex activity, requiring physical activity and energy.
- It is considered a form of aerobic exercise because it delivers increased oxygen to your brain, leading to better circulation.
- When you sing, you support your voice using your posture and your diaphragm. You produce resonant sound, adjust pitch, and negotiate vocal range and volume through a series of controlled, coordinated actions using your larynx (which contains your vocal cords), lips, teeth, tongue, and soft palate. Singing also helps you to speak, and to enunciate.
Per Costas Karageorghis, Professor of Sports and Exercise Physiology at Brunei University in London, “I think what is happening is that music is influencing our emotional or affective response. And so pleasure for longer. Feeling that pleasure often means that the brain has to work a little less hard. It needs slightly less oxygen as a consequence.” [2]
Singing is good for your brain.
- Music fires up your brain. It improves overall brain function and plasticity, mental clarity, alertness, and concentration.
- It provides the auditory and emotional setting to retrieve forgotten episodic memories which transport you back in time. It takes very little to remind you of the words of your favorite songs from the past. Singing, playing, or listening to those songs stimulates positive emotions. This is even true for people with severe memory problems.
Singing reduces stress and depression. It lightens your load.
This is expressed in the traditional children’s song, “Sing Your Way Home”:
“Sing your way home at the close of the day.
Sing your way home, drive the shadows away.
Smile every mile, for wherever you roam.
It will brighten your road, It will lighten your load,
If you sing your way home.”
The Roman poet, Virgil, also knew that as far back as approximately 40 BCE when he wrote in Ecologues, “Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.”
- Singing reduces your cortisol levels. Cortisol is the primary hormone responsible for stress. Reducing your cortisol levels helps you to reduce stress.
- It regulates your emotions stimulating the production of serotonin, the hormone which helps you to feel emotionally stable and calm
“He who sings scares away his woes.” This wisdom was uttered by Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’ classic novel, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605-1615).
- Misery loves company. Singing songs of sorrow when you are sad soothes your soul and gives you a sense of connection to others who have also suffered, reminding you that sadness is part of the human condition.
Eighteenth century British literary and art critic, William Hazlitt, expressed the joy of singing this way: “The thrush that awakes at day-break with its song, does not sing because it is paid to sing, or to please others, or to be admired or criticised. It sings because it is happy; it pours the thrilling sounds from its throat, to relieve the overflowings of its own heart…” [3]
Singing is uplifting.
It raises your spirits. It is a wonderful way to express happiness and joy. It helps us to discover who we are, and to express ourselves in meaningful ways.
- It improves your self-confidence, well-being, and quality of life.
- It stimulates the release of oxytocin, a “feel good” hormone which encourages you to socialize and bond with others.
- It brightens your mood by increasing production of dopamine, the hormone responsible for pleasure and rewards.
- A 2004 study exploring how singing promotes well-being found that amateur singers experienced increased levels of joy and elatedness. They also reported that the self-expression involved in singing helped them to release emotional tension, and that singing relaxed and energized them.
So – whether you have the voice of an angel, or you “can’t carry a tune in a bucket”, sing loudly and full of joy — and flourish!
“Don’t worry if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear –Just sing, sing a song!”
Written by: Marti Klein
About the author: Marti is a health and wellness coach and the owner of Flourish! Health and Wellness Coaching in Dana Point, California, offering telehealth coaching. Connect with her at www.FlourishHWC.com or via LinkedIn. She received her graduate-level training in health and wellness coaching at Emory University, and looks forward to sitting for the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching/National Board of Medical Examiners exam next month. She is dedicated to helping people enhance their health and wellness and has a special interest in lipedema, a chronic loose connective tissue disorder primarily affecting women. She is also the co-owner of Klein + Klein, a corporate communications consulting firm.
_______________________________________
[1] The World According to Willie Nelson”, Men’s Health, April 15, 2013
[2] Interviewed on “Voices Behind the Music”, Feed Media Group, May 10, 2022
[3] “The Little Hunch-Back: On The Opera” The Yellow Dwarf: A Weekly Miscellany, No. 21, May 23, 1818
