How singing together changes more than the brain

Sarah Wilson's research shows that music makes connections at multiple levels including the level of the brain, the level of the mind, at a personal level and at a social level. These connections have been shown to translate to academic benefits, including improved literacy, numeracy, spatial abilities, executive functioning and intelligence as well as greater school attendance and participation. They also extend to psychological benefits for self-confidence and self-discipline, and social benefits for teamwork and social skills.

Neuroscience proves that singing connects the neural pathways differently and fires up the right temporal lobe of the brain releasing endorphins, making people healthier, happier, smarter and more creative. Music-making and singing activate multiple brain networks. Not surprisingly, music has been dubbed the 'food of neuroscience' and provides a powerful model of how the brain can change in response to the environment.

What I love about this research is that it's way more powerful when we sing together. And it's important to note that group singing is on the rise. According to Chorus America, 32.5 million adults sing in choirs, up by almost 10 million over the past six years. There are similar increases in Australia. This is a very good thing. Go out and sing!

Singing has been shown to activate our pleasure networks and improve our mood by lowering cortisol and other stress hormones.In one study, people's levels of oxytocin, the hormone associated with pleasure, love and bonding, were measured before and after singing sessions. The levels increased significantly.

Other research has shown that participation in music and singing improves our ability to learn by creating brain meta-plasticity which provides an enriched learning environment as our whole brain becomes ready to change and engage in learning. Increasing research illustrates the benefits of singing for enhancing all kinds of learning, language and other skills. Music and singing is also proven to be neuro-protective, warding off age-related decline and continuously 'exercising' our brains. It also enhances our physical health and autoimmune function by improving our posture, cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

Further international research and studies have shown how singing together heals those with strokes, speech abnormalities and depression. Doctors are increasingly interested in the ability of music - particularly singing - to allay depression. Stephen Clift, director of the Sidney De Haan Research Centre at Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent, United Kingdom, says that "Singing together helps people with mental health issues feel happier, better connected with others and more supported." Singing can literally retrain the brain!

Singing for Community Wellbeing

These days, we talk more to boxes and screens than to one another. I have a theory of 'boxes' I'd like to share with you. We are born and put in a bassinet-like box in a box-shaped hospital. We are brought home into a house we would draw as a box with a triangle on it. Then at school we are often educated to think in a box. We go to the supermarket and come out with boxes and tins. We go to work and have our mobile phone 'box' in our pocket and our computer 'box' in front of us. We tick lots of boxes on lots of forms. And finally, when we go out of this life… we go out in a box!

We are building boxes, bricks and mortar and walls between us – the rates of depression, anxiety and other mental illness are constantly rising. Yet I believe it is on the bridges between the boxes where life happens, through loving relationships, in nature and by unleashing our creativity. And when we regularly engage in music-making, singing and other creative pursuits our attention and cognition improve and we are connecting with others and building bridges, not boxes. It is fundamentally important to nurture the attributes of humans that set us apart from machines, love, compassion, creativity, courage, caring and so on. Otherwise, we will become redundant.

Singing promotes social bonding and cohesion. When we sing together, we transcend our isolation and feel part of connected, empathetic world. Not only do we breathe together but studies show that our hearts start to beat together! How good is that?

Singing for Creativity and Innovation

Music is considered to be of adaptive and evolutionary significance in terms of its multiple benefits for human learning and development. Furthermore there are theories that speculate that our brains developed along with singing and music as a survival mechanism. Before there were governments or nations, tribes and groups used songs and dance to build loyalty to the group, transmit vital information, and ward off enemies. Those who sang well survived because the world was a scary place.