Healthy Tidbits

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(Berkeley Wellness) 

Sing to Your Health

Perhaps you sing for pleasure in the shower, improvise duets with your favorite opera or rock star, or sing in a choir. But does singing have any health benefits?
Scientists, and singers, wonder about this, too. Here are a few intriguing findings, some weightier than others:
• Singing and asthma: Studies have found that singing helps people with asthma and bronchitis because of the deep breathing, and because a variety of muscles, such as the diaphragm, get a workout. There’s even some evidence that singing lessons can help suppress snoring.
• Singing and the immune system: Researchers in Germany studied antibodies (part of a healthy immune response) and stress hormones in members of an amateur choir, comparing levels when the singers were singing or just listening. Their stress hormones went up when they listened, and their antibodies went up when they sang, possibly because singing made the singers feel good and they didn’t like just listening. Temporary changes in immunity mean very little, however. Many activities produce ups and downs in antibodies and stress hormones.
• Singing and aging: In a survey called “Creativity and Aging” from researchers at George Washington University, members of senior chorales in the District of Columbia, San Francisco, and Brooklyn reported better health and fewer falls than non-singers.
• Singing and Alzheimer’s: A British branch of the Alzheimer’s Society reports that singing is helpful for patients with dementia. Singing familiar songs and learning new ones can help build self-esteem and alleviate loneliness. Though there is no proof that engaging in such memory-dependent exercises as singing or learning new mental skills can prevent Alzheimer’s, many experts think such activities may at least help delay the onset of memory problems in some people.
• Singing and sociability: Chorus America, an organization of singing groups, conducted a survey a few years ago, and found that more people in the U.S. and Canada take part in choral singing than in any other performing art, and that most singers say that singing in a chorus builds social confidence.
• Singing and human intelligence: Walter Freeman, a famous neurobiologist at University of California, Berkeley, believes that singing and dancing are genetic in origin, and that they helped the brain evolve. They have also served as a means of transmitting knowledge from one generation to another.