The Benefits of Singing
Comments such as, “I would love to know how to sing”, or “I really enjoy singing but no one thinks that I am good at it” may not be surprising. But what surprised me was what a music therapist shared. He knew of many stories of music teachers telling their students to pretend they were singing the words to songs because they weren’t the best singers. Ouch and double ouch!
Singing is a part of human culture. Singing is a natural expression of all those wonderful and not so wonderful things that goes on inside us. Through singing we express ourselves and show how happy we are just to be alive and through lyrics and songs we pass down something precious from generation to generation.
Below are a few reasons why I love to sing, even with my limited abilities, may be you can share your thoughts.
Connect with yourself – Singing or even just humming a favorite tune to often work like a meditative exercise. It allows me to lose myself to the music and get in touch with my feelings without the cumbersome thoughts.
Singing Connects Us With Our Bodies – One of the basic and essential singing exercises is breathing exercise. Some say that singing is 80% breathing that starts from a conscious effort to fill ourselves with life giving breath. And in time it becomes a second nature to help us relax and focus on singing rather than worrying and thinking so much during the day. And let’s not forget those natural endorphins that are released by singing and make us feel real good.
Connect to our feelings – With all the mental activities required to just survive these days, we begin to neglect our emotional needs more and more. Singing brings those feelings to the forefront and helps focus our thoughts on non cerebral human qualities like joy, love, laughter.
Singing help us express your feelings – How many times has your favorite songwriter and singer expressed your inner most emotions in words that simply filled your heart and brought sadness, joy, tears and laughter? This rarely happens outside of songs. We also express the same feelings in the same way when we sing.
We connect to others through songs – From singing hymns to ringtones we choose songs to connect to each other. Singing connects us to common causes unlike anything else.
So, start singing your heart out and enjoy your own distinctive voice. Experiment with different styles and instruments and it may help if you journal your thoughts, impressions and feelings as you experiment. This way, the songs you listen to and those you sing can become very specific tools of upliftment for you.
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