Body, soul and spirit: singing makes you healthy and happy

Sing in the shower, sing by yourself, go and join the singing festival! Or grab a hairbrush and imagine it’s a microphone and you’re standing in front of hundreds of thousands of fans in Hallenstadion. If you are more attached to the health promises of the Far East, devote yourself to the practice of Buddhist dhikr. The recently deceased Tina Turner († 83) swore on it – there’s even a two-hour You Tube video where you can listen to her chants. Sing no matter how and no matter what!

Singing improves not only health, but also relationships. And it makes you happy. By the way, singing is most useful when you do it together, for example, in a choir. These are not all real, but positive effects that have been scientifically proven in various studies and can be attributed, among other things, directly to physical and chemical processes in the body. Here we offer a small excerpt.

vibration is good

Vibrations that penetrate the body at the cellular level while singing reduce stress. This is demonstrated by research published by the British Royal College of Music in 2015 in the journal Frontiers of Psychology. The researchers measured the stress hormone cortisol in the subjects’ saliva before and after they sang.

The result: stress levels are significantly reduced after singing. However, this only applies if you don’t sing in public or have stage fright. Otherwise, the effect is reversed. So: Singing in the shower is ideal for stress levels, less so than auditioning for a TV talent show.

Singing makes you happy and joyful

As early as 2012, researchers from Oxford University’s Department of Psychology proved that singing promotes the release of immunoglobulin A, an inflammation-fighting antibody, as well as endorphins called happiness hormones.

Concentrations in the blood were higher in both cases than in an unsinging comparison group. Nice side effect: Endorphins also help fight both physical and psychological pain: A 2008 study at the University of East Anglia in the UK proved that singing helps against mental problems and depression. The best thing about it: It works, even if it feels like scratching your nails on wood.

All this is even more effective when singing

Anyone who’s ever sung knows: you can’t do it quietly. The laryngeal effect needs a certain pressure, that is, a certain volume, to work. The sound waves produced when singing penetrate the body cells particularly strongly. With all the positive effects described above.

What are you waiting for? To sing a song! Even better: yodel!