Many people love to sing. It’s one way to express your emotions, feelings, enjoyment and even grief. It’s such a motivational activity that can change how you feel in the moment. It’s so powerful that it can also benefit your mind and body. In this article, discover the mental health benefits of singing as you play and sing along to your favorite song.
What Are the 10 Mental Health Benefits of Singing?
Whether you sing in the shower, in the car or during a concert, here are some benefits it can provide to your mental well-being.
1. It Helps Reduce Stress Levels
Think about the last time you belted out a few tunes. What did you feel after? Whether you sound good or not, it probably felt great — almost liberating. When you sing, your body reduces the production of cortisol, which increases heart rate and blood pressure.
This hormone strikes when you feel stressed. There are times when stress can be positive, but it can be more challenging to manage in most situations. The next time you feel exhausted from work or school, try swapping stress eating to performing a rendition of your favorite song.
2. It Increases Self-Awareness
Singing for a few minutes allows you to connect with your physical, mental and emotional well-being. Breath control and exercising your vocal cords, diaphragm, larynx and other body parts associated with vocalizing keeps you in check of your physical wellness.
When you recite lyrics, you also nurture your health’s mental and emotional aspects. Expressing your emotions through a song encourages you to reflect and connect with yourself more deeply. Likewise, it’s also a medium of self-expression — when you sing a lyric that resonates with your feelings, you fully experience them and let them go.
3. It Boosts Self-Confidence
One of the mental health benefits of singing is improving your self-perception. Recall the last time someone said you sing well. Compliments make you feel good, which helps boost your trust in yourself. If you aspire to perform in front of others someday, positive feedback from people will make you even more confident about your self-expression.
Additionally, when you sing in the shower, you block your mind from negative thoughts. Few people notice it, but belting some notes is a free self-care activity.
4. It Makes You Happy
Singing produces the same feeling when you listen to your favorite song. When you recite lyrics, parts of your brain “light up,” signaling the release of endorphins, the hormones responsible for making us happy. So whether you sing alone in front of the mirror or with your family and friends in a karaoke bar, singing your heart out can help lighten your mood.
When you do it regularly, it can have a positive effect on your life. The next time you hear someone say, “Do whatever makes you happy,” take advantage of every moment you can sing — on the way to work, while taking a bath and before going to sleep.
5. It Helps Lessen the Grief
Singing alone or with a group helps you release the emotional pain you feel after a tragic situation — losing a loved one or breaking up with a significant other. In a research on people dealing with grief, singing with a choir can help stop the progression of depression symptoms and maintain a sense of well-being.
Grief can be frightening to some. But when people gather for a meaningful activity, it helps them connect and make expressing their emotions more manageable, knowing that some individuals are also going through the same thing.
6. It Fosters Connection
When you sing a song with others, you feel a strong sense of camaraderie and social inclusion. The magic of music is when singing becomes a tool to get you closer to other people. It triggers the production of oxytocin or the “love hormone” that contributes to the uplifting feeling of bonding with others. Additionally, it creates a warm feeling when you harmonize with other people.
The next time you host a party at home, consider blasting some songs to sing and dance along to with your loved ones.
7. It Enhances Memory
Another mental health benefit of singing is providing mental alertness and concentration. Since singing involves many things at once — breath control, reciting the lyrics and flexing your vocal cords — you engage some parts of your brain.
This activity also benefits people with dementia, partly because music can be a powerful tool in sparking long-lost memories.
8. It Helps Reduce Depression and Anxiety
When you sing, your body releases endorphins, which help stimulate positive neurotransmitters like serotonin and reduce depression. An organ in the ear called the sacculus receives the frequencies from reciting the lyrics that help create a feeling of pleasure, regardless of whether the voice is in tune. This shows that you don’t have to be a great singer to reap the mental health benefits of singing.
Additionally, this activity also helps lessen feelings of anxiety because of the rush of endorphins and oxytocin. It can help quiet your mind, relax your muscles and distract you from negative thoughts.
9. It Helps You Calm Down
If you want to get back in cool before a job interview, try singing your favorite song a few hours before. It helps you calm down because it regulates your breathing.
When you learn to sing, you breathe well and use your diaphragm, increasing oxygen intake and lung capacity. Likewise, it exercises muscle groups in your upper body, helping boost the efficiency of your cardiovascular system. The more oxygen you have in the body, the more mentally alert you become.
Singing is a free distraction, too. When you sing, you are fully immersed in it, allowing you to tune off your mind from other thoughts and live in the moment.
10. It Helps Relieve Pain
Singing can also reduce pain symptoms and intensity among people with long-term health conditions. This is interesting, given that some medications aim to do the same but often have side effects. The beauty of this activity is that it’s free and provides no adverse reactions.
Singing Is for Everyone
The best thing about this activity is it doesn’t matter if you are old or young — the mental health benefits of singing remain the same for everyone. Whether you sound good or not, belting out some tunes helps give your mind a break and a boost.
Photo by Courtney Kammers on Unsplash
This is a collaborative post supporting our Peace In Peace Out initiative.