Singing improves your health based on many studies.
Here are just a few of them

Dr. Stephen Malloch of the University of Western Sydney studied 40 infants over three years divided into three groups -- hospitalized babies with music, hospitalized babies without music and healthy babies at home without music.

The music sessions were carried out by doctors gently singing and holding the babies.

Malloch found babies getting music therapy conserved energy and made them less irritable than those without music.

He said this lead to shorter hospital stays and faster recoveries.

Malloch`s research will appear in an upcoming international music therapy journal and was reported to the World Congress on Music Therapy in Brisbane last year.

M&C News                          Copyright 2006 by United Press International

Good vibrations

"A recent study undertaken in Denmark found that singing traditional songs to people with dementia - including Alzheimer's - helped to reduce agitated behaviour, increase communicative engagement and bring into balance over- or under-arousal," says Professor Tony Wigram, head of PhD Studies in Music Therapy at Aalborg University in Denmark.

This may be because the part of the brain that recognises and enjoys music is less affected by dementia than other areas.

Orange County Register
March 31, 2001
 

IRVINE, Calif. - Singing in a choir may just make you healthier, according to a study by the University of California, Irvine.

Researchers at the school found increased levels of disease-fighting proteins in the mouths of choir members after they sang Beethoven's choral masterwork, the Missa Solemnis.

According to the study, a protein used by the immune system to fight disease called immunoglobulin A increased 150 percent during rehearsals and 240 percent during performance. The boost seemed directly related to the singers' states of mind, which many participants described as happy or euphoric.

"The more passionate you feel while singing, the greater the effect," said education Professor Robert Beck, who authored the study with Thomas Cesario, dean of the university's College of Medicine. The study was published this school year in the scientific journal Music Perception.

The difference in the increased levels between a performance and rehearsal, scientists theorized, may be because the singers had achieved mastery of the complicated piece after often-stressful rehearsals and were enjoying the thrill of the performance itself.