Did you know that singing is good for your overall mental health? Well, it is! According to the 2020 Healthline article, 10 Ways That Singing Benefits Your Health, and literal decades of related research, singing is shown to help with the following mental health concerns:
Stress Relief: A 2017 study measured the amount of cortisol, the stress hormone, in participant’s saliva before and after they sang. Researchers in that study found that the amount of cortisol was lower after singing. They also found singing reduces stress levels whether the participants were singing in a group or by themselves.There’s a small catch, though: Cortisol only goes down if you’re singing in a place that doesn’t make you anxious.
Helps with grief: Singing in a group doesn’t just help you with physical pain; it may also help with the emotional pain you feel after you’ve lost someone you love. In a 2019 study conducted among people dealing with grief, researchers found that for those who sang in a choir, depression symptoms didn’t get worse over time and their sense of wellbeing remained stable. Researchers concluded that group singing may be a good option for people who need additional support during a time of grief.
Improves mental health and mood: A 2018 study done in the United Kingdom evaluated 20 people in a singing program known as The Sing Your Heart Out project. The participants included people with mental health conditions, as well as the general public. Researchers found that the participants reported improvements in their mental health, mood, sense of well-being and feeling of belonging as a result of these singing workshops.
In addition to these things, singing has many physical health benefits, including boosting your immune system, increasing your pain threshold, improving snoring, improving lung function, enhancing memory and cognitive functioning and improving speaking abilities.
So, how can I incorporate more singing into my day to day life? Here are some ideas to start with (and remember that there are no expectations of needing to sing in front of others if that feels too vulnerable at this time!):
Sing in the car, the shower or any other comfortable spaces that allow for some privacy.
Sing with your (or someone else’s) kids. Children’s music is easy to learn and is low pressure.
Attend a local music festival, especially ones that have group sing-alongs as part of the event schedule.
If you’re looking for social connection, join a local chorus, choir or song circle. Or go sing karaoke with friends!
Take singing lessons or sift through the sea of coaching videos on YouTube.
Consider working with a music therapist.
Now, if you take nothing else away from this article, know that you don’t need to be “good” at singing to benefit from it. In fact, if this is something you grapple with, I strongly encourage you to consider the advice of Mark Twain, and “sing like no one is listening.”
This month Looking Glass is proud to support Child and Family Services. Child and Family Services is a dedicated resource offering a comprehensive range of programs and services to support the well-being of children and families. Their diverse offerings include mental health services, adoption programs, family strengthening initiatives, and community outreach. Through their Community Behavioral Health Center (CBHC) which serves as an entry point for timely, flexible, person-centered, high-quality mental health and addiction treatment on an urgent and ongoing basis, Child and Family Services helps individuals & families engage in the mental health & substance use service they need as soon as possible.
Kim Johnson, LMHC, MT-BC, is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) and board certified music therapist (MT-BC) who graduated with her master’s from Lesley University in 2017. She has experience with adults and adolescents in group private practice and community mental health settings. The levels of care she has worked in are outpatient, with both individual and group therapy and in partial hospital programs for mental health and substance use disorders. Additionally, she has had intensive training in dialectical behavioral therapy and cognitive processing therapy for PTSD.
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