Singing: One of God's Best Ideas

This past year and a half has been hard on some of us who sing.  I don’t mean “the good singers” who have great voices.  I just mean the people who like to sing, which I think is a majority of people when they feel free to just sing and are not worried about being judged.  Because singing has been determined to be a major spreader of Covid, singing has been eliminated or limited in churches, and many concerts have  been cancelled or banned.   

I realized this was having a personal effect on me back in the spring.  Singing brings joy, and we sure need more sources of that right now.  In addition, research shows that singing, especially at the top of your voice, reduces anxiety.  It acts on the vagus nerve, which influences anxiousness.  The most repeated admonition in the Bible is “Don’t be afraid.”  The second most repeated is “Sing.”  Do you see the connection?  Psalm 63 says, “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.  Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.”

I decided I would sing everyday.  I start with a vocal exercises playlist on Spotify that MichaelEllen created. That’s because if I’m going to sing loudly, I really need to warm up first.  This kind of loud and full-voice singing is pretty physical and does have some kind of mood-lifting effect.  I noticed it didn’t have the same helpful effect if I just hummed along or sang quietly.  So now I’m belting out Linda Ronstadt and Abba and old hymns every afternoon, usually while I fix supper. 

 Besides reducing anxiety, singing, especially with a choir or group of people, promotes happiness.  In Alie Ward’s podcast Ologies, in the episode entitled “Awesomeology (Gratitude)”, Neil Pasricha discusses three scientifically proven ways to increase your happiness:  journaling, forest therapy (getting into the woods), and group singing.   And not only does it promote happiness, research shows that group singing unifies people and ameliorates conflict.  Here’s a quote from this research: “singing . . . helps forge social bonds. . . . We’ve also shown that community singing is effective for bonding large groups, making it an ideal behavior to improve our broader social networks.” If you read the article, you will see numerous other benefits, from boosting your immune system and releasing endorphins to helping people with dementia.  

Obviously, God’s idea to have churches sing together when they meet is a brilliant idea. I love that the whole ending of the book of Psalms – the last 5-6 chapters – is about singing.  As Psalm 146:2 says “I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.”  God’s obviously encouraging us to do something that’s good for us.  And fun.  I’ll be looking for more ways to do it.