Singing is Good for Your Health

It takes LA Times writer Susan Brink a little longer than it should to get to the point of this story (singing is good for your health), but the wait it worth it, at least for those who can carry a tune. Brink points us to McGill University scientist Daniel J. Levitin, whose  research shows that listening to music produces endorphins and the neurotransmitter dopamine, the so called feel-good hormone.  Other researchers, she says, including Walter J. Freeman, a neurobiologist at UC
Berkeley, think that when people sing, oxytocin is released.  The hormone’s release, she writes, is likely part of the reason that group singing
forms bonds. "When we sing and dance together, our emotions are
synchronized," says David Huron, a musicologist at both Ohio State
University’s school of music and center for cognitive science.
"Everyone is on the same emotional page." Brink could be right when she claims that the military
understands that, readying troops to act in unison in part through
rhythmic marching songs.