Soprano Rachel Bacon explores how belonging to a community that sings together can be transformative…
If you sing in any sort of a choir, you know it’s a big commitment and comes with expectations: travel time for weekly rehearsals, learning the music, drumming up an audience for concerts, performing in concerts, and many other activities.
BUT… we enjoy it, that’s why we do it! Enjoyment is probably the most obvious benefit of singing with a choir, but research shows how significant health benefits can be gained from participation.
You may have seen a recent BBC article describing how singing as a group is supporting new mums through postnatal depression. This fabulous initiative shows the positive benefits of singing during a difficult period of life.
Research shows other benefits, with social connection being the most well-known. Singing together with like-minded people is good for your social life! The shared experience of rehearsing and performing forges social bonds that are even more important in these post-covid days where social isolation is a growing issue.
Singing does all this and more for us! It exercises the brain and improves breathing, posture and muscle power. It has been shown to be effective as pain relief through the release of endorphins, the so-called ‘happy hormone’. It reduces levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, and can boost immunity. It helps to regulate heart rate and blood pressure, and because it increases the levels of oxygen in the blood it actually counts as aerobic activity! It has even been found to help with the breathing issues associated with long covid. Such is the strength of evidence of benefit that the University of Leeds now offers an MA in Music and Wellbeing.
Choirs and singing won’t cure all ills, but my word it helps! Joining a choir was one of the best things I ever did AND it’s good for me in so many ways. What’s not to like?!
Additional information:
MA in Music and Wellbeing: https://courses.leeds.ac.uk/i488/music-and-wellbeing-ma
TEDx talk: How do we use a choir to build a community?
Guardian article: ‘A mega mechanism for bonding’: why singing together does us good.
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