Why you should sing more — even if it's off key

Independent

10-06-2025

Please, don't stop the music!
There are some major health benefits to singing and practicing music — even if you can't quite hit all the notes in the latest Taylor Swift smash.
Making music has the ability to benefit brain and mental well-being, regardless of your age, scientists say. Singing can also strengthen your physical health. So, don't stop, even if you're not the next Stevie Nicks.
'Nobody says you shouldn't jog if you are not good at it,' Daniel Levitin, a professor emeritus of neuroscience at Quebec's McGill University, recently told The Washington Post. 'That's not the point.'
But, what is the point? Here's what you should know about singing before your next karaoke night:
It's a mood booster
Researchers have found singing helps to improve our moods, and the moods of our children. A new study published by researchers at Yale University has found that singing to your infant can significantly boost their mood. Research from the American Institute of Physics found that playing music can even calm fetal heart rates, potentially resulting in developmental benefits.
But, the benefits go beyond age gaps.
In April, a study from Northwestern University showed singing could positively affect older and isolated adults with neurocognitive disorders.
The brain and physical benefits
We feel good when we sing. So do our bodies.
When people sing together, our bodies produce oxytocin, which is sometimes called the 'love hormone' because it contributes to our sense of feeling socially bonded with others. Our levels of cortisol, or the 'stress hormone,' are also decreased when people sing together.
Singing can also help people to lose weight. Just an hour of singing while standing up burns around 140 calories for a person who weighs 150 pounds, according to the London Singing Institute. For those who weigh more, the number of calories increases.
Furthermore, it can aid lung function, because it involves deep breathing and controlled use of muscles. It helps people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — which is a condition that can obstruct the airways — to manage symptoms and keep their airways open.
In fact, singing is a boon for people with multiple health conditions.
In people who had experienced strokes, singing was able help repair the language network of the brain, researchers at the University of Helsinki found. The practice increased the volume of the brain's grey matter, which plays a pivotal role in cognition and emotional regulation. Previously, MIT neuroscientists had found neurons in the human brain that respond to singing, but not other types of music.
Melodies can fight maladies
Singing and listening to music can lead to significant improvements in mental health and smaller improvements in physical health, according to Harvard Medical School.
Singing accesses the left side of the brain, responsible for structuring sentences. Whereas, music activates just about all of the brain, including memory and emotion-based regions. It can support peoples' memory, word recall, and energy levels.
Listening to music can reduce blood pressure, limit pain, and help to improve sleep quality, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Music listeners in a 2020 survey had higher scores for mental well-being and slightly reduced levels of anxiety and depression to people.
'Because music can activate almost all brain regions and networks, it can help to keep a myriad of brain pathways and networks strong, including those networks that are involved in well-being, learning, cognitive function, quality of life, and happiness,' Harvard's Dr. Andrew Budson notes.
Your pitch is probably not as off as you might think.
Researchers at the University of California Cruz found that a remarkable proportion of people singing 'earworm' songs from memory matched the pitch of the original songs.
'What this shows is that a surprisingly large portion of the population has a type of automatic, hidden 'perfect pitch' ability,' Matt Evans, a Ph.D. candidate who led the study, said in a statement.