How singing is good for your health. 5 non-obvious reasons to work on your voice

American and Russian singer, songwriter, vocal teacher

How can singing be good for your health?

There is nothing easier than to open your mouth and sing, especially if you have an innate ability to do so. That’s what anyone who hasn’t taken vocal lessons seriously thinks. In fact, going to a vocal coach’s class is comparable to going to the gym in terms of exertion. Or a visit to a top-class psychotherapist, if we talk about the benefits of singing for our psyche. We tell you about what you can get thanks to vocal lessons, in addition to everyone’s attention at karaoke.

Who studied to be a vocalist, he well remembers with what sensations you leave the classroom after the class. Your back, buttocks and knees ache, you feel the tension of muscles you didn’t know existed before: muscles of the soft palate, tongue, jaw… It’s quite normal. Almost all of us know this physically unpleasant sensation the day after a good workout, when muscle fibers that have been micro-traumatized recover and the brain forms new neural connections.

Real singing is hard but grateful work. If vocalizing comes into your life on a regular basis, you will notice positive changes in yourself at some point.

Excellent posture

Classes in the elitist art of vocal training with a professional involve working with the body and chest, with the position of the shoulders and shoulder blades. You’ll soon forget about slouching.

How else you can improve posture, read in the material at the link.

Tightened and elastic muscles

Even overweight singers do not look loose, but rather give the impression of people who are firmly bunched and powerful. This is not a stage impression, it is in fact the case. The singer’s body is disciplined and poised.

Proper breathing

A fine-tuned respiratory system and coordination allows you to be enduring any cardio load. Even if you are not singing, but, for example, walking with acceleration, running, climbing stairs.

Perfect breathing improves sleep, increases the overall vitality of the body, resistance to infection. There is also a mental consequence, also important and valuable: the one who breathes correctly, is able to maintain concentration for a long time, without mental fatigue. And this is very important in our time of information overload and the need to constantly learn.

Better health

Excess weight and swelling disappear, blood circulation improves, skin tone increases, internal organs work accurately and reliably. All these miracles are possible thanks to the correct resonance of the voice and competent breathing.

There are four points of resonance in the human head: throat, jaw, nasal and head resonance. The head resonance point is located in the area of the cuneiform sinus, which borders the pituitary gland, one of the most important glands in the body. People who know how to breathe perfectly, resonate “in the head” correctly. This triggers self-healing processes, including regaining a healthy weight.

But there is a flip side to this. Here I remember the words of my vocal teacher: a full opera singer breathes incorrectly, the resonance of his voice does not reach the cuneiform sinus, and this disrupts the hormonal cycle of the pituitary gland – hence the additional volumes. Sometimes you can hear: without a couple dozen extra pounds, the voice will not be “fleshy”. This can be attributed to the near-vocal mythology of ignorance. Also so justify their own “technical” imperfections.

Self-confidence

Of course, technique is important, but still, first of all, the vocal is about human manifestation in this world. It’s about how a person bypasses or overcomes childhood traumas and fears that block their ability to express themselves. Many people want to sing, but are very afraid. They come to class to work on technique, and this is supposed to help overcome the fear. The technique improves, but the fear remains, and there is still no flight, power, freedom, emotional expression, or contagiousness in the voice. In general, everything that makes a singer, even with modest natural data, a real star.

Manifestation is a complex, hard to grasp phenomenon. Not being afraid to be funny or beautiful is manifestation. Not being afraid to be imperfect is the same. To show up singing is to not be afraid to be liked or disliked. It means to know yourself and your unique individuality through sound.

We sometimes say high-minded words: “sang like God”, “sang so that goosebumps run down your body”. And here it is necessary to understand that not everyone is able to come to such realization in sound. In a way, it is easier to pump yourself up technically than to work through and open yourself personally.

It is necessary to work in the complex of body-breathing-sound-mental with a teacher who knows where to start and in what direction to go. Then the vocalist, becoming over time more and more strong both physically and spiritually, at some point will be able to “break through” the ceiling of his natural data, break through to the listener and realize himself to the fullest.

For more information on how to increase your self-confidence, read the article at the link.