SING FOR YOUR HEALTH

Q. I’m tired and I have little energy. My doctor can find nothing wrong with me after many tests. I’ve increased the hours I sleep at night and I exercise some but I’m still listless. I’ve been to a counselor but that didn’t help either. I have a good job, a good marriage and good kids. My doctor suggested an anti-depressant but I don’t want to take medication. What else can I do to overcome my sluggishness?

A. Try singing! New evidence suggests that singing is good for our health and boosts our energy levels. Lilias Folan, well known yoga teacher, in one of her articles some time ago told of a Benedictine monastery in France. The Benedictines are a silent order. They begin their day early each morning with chanting and prayers followed by manual labor and more chanting at intervals throughout the day and into the night. 

When there were conflicts about whether to chant in Latin or in English, a new young abbot decided to eliminate chanting. After several months of not chanting, the monks became tired and listless. Doctors were called in and various remedies were tried including giving them more sleep and changing their diet. These changes did not help; instead, the monks became even more fatigued.

          

Another doctor was called in. He found a majority of the monks “slumped in their cells like wet dish rags.”  This doctor speculated that the chanting which the monks had previously done served to recharge them. Chanting was reintroduced and the monks gradually returned to health.

          

Research shows that music can affect our health positively in many ways. Soothing sounds are credited with preventing colds, easing labor pains, lowering blood pressure, increasing endorphins (the body’s natural painkillers), calming anxiety and boosting our immune system. 

          

One study found that surgery patients exposed to soothing music had less pain and shorter recovery time than those who were not. Dr. Mitchell L. Gaynor, author of Sounds of Healing, uses harmonious sounds in helping cancer patients recover. “I’ve never found anything more powerful than sound and voice and music to begin to heal and transform every aspect of people’s lives” Gaynor says. Music makes a difference even before we’re born. The unborn child is capable of hearing for half the pregnancy and is “affected profoundly” by what he or she hears according to Gaynor.

The sounds of soothing music are low. Sounds above 90 decibels cause stress and ear damage - the opposite effect. Disharmony and noise jar our nerves and cause depressed or pessimistic thoughts or feelings. 

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine studied choir members who sang a Beethoven choral number. The researchers found that a protein used by the immune system to fight disease increased 150 percent during rehearsals and 240 percent during a performance. The boost seemed related to the singers’ happy or euphoric state of mind. The more passionate they felt while singing, the greater the increase.

          

This research suggests that we should all rush out and join a choir! We at least should find a place of worship with a great deal of uplifting singing and music. Short of that we certainly should sing in the shower, chant or sing as we meditate or pray and listen to comforting or uplifting music on a daily basis.

          

It also suggests we should avoid disharmony. Many stress producing sounds bombard our ears every day. We can’t totally avoid the shouting boss, the noise of jackhammers or the sounds of traffic. But we can mute the jarring TV commercials, choose to turn off the violent or pessimistic fare offered on TV and keep our voices pleasant at home. And we can sing!

“I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the nations, and I will sing praises to Your name.”  2 Samuel 22:50

Blessings, Dottie