The healing power of harmony

Russo and Arla Good, co-director and chief researcher of the SingWell Project, collaborate with research teams that gather evidence on the benefits of singing for a wide range of communication challenges. They also determine the best ways to deliver these singing programs to people.

The surprising benefits of singing with others

SingWell’s research shows that singing helps people perceive and express language and emotion across a number of communication challenges, including aphasia, stuttering and Parkinson’s. As Good explains, when the neural networks responsible for conversational speech are disrupted, “sometimes our singing capacity remains intact. We can access language through familiar song lyrics.” Plus, “singing strengthens our vocal cords and improves our breath control, which in turn helps our overall communication abilities.”

But Singwell’s research shows the most profound impact of singing is in combating loneliness and stress and boosting people’s mood. Good describes witnessing people with dementia who aren’t engaging with others or showing emotion suddenly shift when the singing starts. “They go from being unresponsive to expressing joy. They’re remembering the songs from their childhood and connecting them back to their identity,” she says.

Singing helps people find themselves again and connect with others after a devastating diagnosis. Through choir, participants realize, “not only do I have my voice and not only am I an expressive speaker, but I’m a performer,” explains Russo.

When SingWell researchers tested participants’ saliva before and after singing, they found a marked reduction in cortisol (a stress hormone) after a choir session. This finding was repeated in numerous studies. That reduction is likely due not to singing itself, but “to the controlled breathing” that people engage in when they sing.

What Russo and Good find especially fascinating is the studies that show an increase in oxytocin after singing in a choir. Oxytocin is the “love” hormone associated with social bonding, whether that’s intimacy, when meeting friends, or when bonding with one’s child. A SingWell-led study published in 2021 in the Psychology of Music found singing solo doesn’t increase oxytocin. The benefit only happens when singing with others.

“A lot of musicians, myself included, can remember that first time they played with other people and it really clicked. There’s this magic moment,” says Russo. “With other kinds of music-making, you have to reach a certain level of fluency on the instrument before that magic can happen. With singing, that oxytocin increase is happening already in the second or third session.”

Expanding access to choirs

Russo and Good are working to strengthen the evidence base for singing. They are building the case for health organizations and governments to invest in choirs that address social determinants of health.

SingWell is launching a trial with seven sites around the world, including Australia, the Netherlands and the U.S. It will research the effects of choir on rehabilitating the brain’s capacity to hear speech. The research builds on a previous SingWell-supported study, published in Frontiers in Neuroscience in 2019, that showed that singing improves aspects of hearing in people with age-related hearing loss. 

After going from not singing at all to singing in a choir for 10 weeks, the participants could more easily pick up speech amid background noise in standardized tests. This is likely due to the improvements in differentiating pitch that comes with singing. “We are currently working on replicating this study in a large scale multi-site study to see how robust the finding is,” Russo explains.

SingWell is also partnering with the Alliance for Healthier Communities, an Ontario-based health network to investigate what happens across a number of emotional and physical health domains when doctors prescribe a SingWell choir. Known as “social prescribing,” when doctors prescribe a specific exercise or class, it’s more likely people will start, and stick to, the activity.

“Singing can be prescribed as a tool to improve speech, hearing, or support other forms of rehabilitation,” says Good. 

But on a broader note, the SingWell initiative “is about tackling the social isolation, depression and loneliness epidemic that we’re facing. It’s about connecting people with others who are dealing with the same sorts of challenges in a fun, joyful way.”

SingWell partners with charitable and community organizations across the world, including the Canadian Lung Association, the Alzheimer Society of Toronto, Aphasia Choirs Go Global, Parkinson Canada, and more. The initiative receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), hearing device manufacturer Sonova International, as well as TMU. It previously received funding from the GRAMMY Foundation, the research arm of the GRAMMY Awards.

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