Everybody can sing. You may think you can’t, but where does that belief stem from? Perhaps a teacher squashed your singing confidence when you were younger, or perhaps your family made jokes about your voice which made you feel self-conscious. When you let those beliefs take hold, you start missing out on a stress-relieving pastime that is completely free and joyful.
Let’s change that. It’s time to let go of that niggling doubt in your mind about your singing ability, because the fact is you can sing. The act of singing is not purely about the sound you make but about the release you create – that is the health-boosting part of it!
Mental health benefits greatly from singing, but it may surprise you to hear that your physical health can also be positively affected.
“Music making exercises the brain as well as the body, but singing is particularly beneficial for improving breathing, posture and muscle tension. Listening to and participating in music has been shown to be effective in pain relief, too, probably due to the release of neurochemicals such as β-endorphin (a natural painkiller responsible for the “high” experienced after intense exercise).”
University of Oxford (Choir singing improves health, happiness – and is the perfect icebreaker)
It doesn’t matter whether you are somebody who only ever sings when you’re on your own, in the shower or in the car, or whether you like to belt out a hit with your friends on the karaoke machine, singing is something that’s really good for you.
Why is singing so good for you?
Let’s take a look at the physical benefits first.
You may be aware that a great relaxation exercise is deep breathing. A favourite example I share with my clients is to imagine you’ve got a balloon in your belly and you’re slowly inflating and deflating the balloon. That slow inflation and deep inflation causes the breath to sink down into the bottom of your lungs, and this causes you to breathe more deeply. This in turn relaxes you.
When you’re singing, you’ll likely take a deep breath – because you want to be able to sing a long phrase or note – and that causes you to suck the breath right down into your lungs, just like in the relaxation exercise. When you breathe out the diaphragm relaxes, but in an intentional way, pushing out the air. This activates your core muscles.
Try it: Put your hands on your back and blow out, as if you’re blowing up a balloon, breathing out as far as you can go. Can you feel your back muscles tensing? If you put your hands on your lower stomach and do the same breath, can you feel your core muscles turning on?
Breathing and singing is a power tool for building and exercising your core muscles – often you won’t even realise you’re doing it. And the added bonus? Exercise releases endorphins, which make us feel good too!
When you’re singing, you’re engaging your whole brain
When you’re listening to music and thinking about the lyrics, you are engaging your left brain and your right brain. All of your brain is fired up.
“There is a singing network in the brain [which is] quite broadly distributed… When we speak, the hemisphere of the brain dealing with language lights up, as we might expect. When we sing, however, both sides of the brain spark into life…”
Sarah Wilson [School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne], BBC.com (The world’s most accessible stress reliever)
When all parts of your brain are feeling awake and invigorated, it is able to exercise and learn better. Remembering lyrics is great for your memory and group singing is a wonderful bonding experience, helping everyone to feel less self-conscious and involved quicker.
There’s a reason why we engage children with music in their early stages and it is that the mental stimulation is really good for us cognitively, as well as psychologically and neurologically.
As your body moves to sing (and maybe dance around your kitchen at the same time) you are exercising without thinking, and as you do so your body is releasing all of the happy hormones through your system. This makes it a fantastic stress reliever.
What has singing got to do with executive and business coaching?
When you get very focused on being professional and productive, it’s easy to forget that you’re still a human being, and human beings need well-being. In order to do what you need to do, but not risk overloading yourself or burning out, you need to find stress relief.
If you’ve got a problem that’s been niggling away at you, and you’re just not getting anywhere with it, it’s time to step away from it. A perfect, positive interruption to use is music.
When you do things that put you in a good mental state, you are better prepared to tackle the chores of the day and to deal with the demands that life is throwing at you. You put yourself in a much more resilient state.
Go and listen to some music. Dance around the kitchen while you make a cup of tea. Make up a little tune in your head and hum it as you stretch. Play for ten minutes on an instrument. Your brain will switch into other gears and start flowing again. Suddenly you’ll find solutions to problems.
It might take a bit of experimentation for you to work out what musical interruptions work for you, but don’t forget about trying them – it’s free to access, so let your voice loose!
Are you thinking – “Of course I’d love to join a singing group, but …” or “It sounds easy but I just can’t because …”?
It sounds as if you’re putting up some mental hurdles to clamber over, but we can tackle those together. If you want to turn your “can’t” into a “can”, I am very good at unblocking barriers, so let’s address what’s getting in your way.
References:
University of Oxford research article:
Choir singing improves health, happiness – and is the perfect icebreaker
https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/choir-singing-improves-health-happiness-%E2%80%93-and-perfect-icebreaker
BBC article
The world’s most accessible stress reliever
The benefits of singing (during covid-19)
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200518-why-singing-can-make-you-feel-better-in-lockdown
