THE HEALING POWER OF SONG

When my sister was dying from breast cancer, I sang to her. I did it because it seemed to sooth her and it made me feel better.
It turns out that singing is really good for us, so it makes sense for caregivers and patients to sing together, whether or not the patient is dying.
There have been a handful of really good books written recently on the subject of our brains and how we process and perform music. One author, Robert Jourdain in Music, the Brain and Ecstasy says that singing moves us out of our “mental wheel chairs.” If that’s the case, then why not sing together?
Before we get to the actual singing part, let me tell you a bit about what happens to us physically when we sing.
First, we get more oxygen, so we feel better than when we’re not singing because we’re breathing more deeply.
Second, we have emotional ties to what we’re singing. At a workshop I was leading at a large church in Birmingham, AL, one of the caregivers brought her mom, who was well into dementia. The woman sat silently, staring at the table throughout my talk. I was making a point about using song as a caregiving tool, so I asked the group to sing What a Friend We Have in Jesus, the sweet old hymn that invites us to take our cares and concerns “to the Lord in prayer.”
The woman sat up, smiled broadly and sang all three verses with us, without needing the word sheets I provided to the participants. As soon as we stopped singing, she went back to staring at the table. I believe the song reached deep into her damaged memory and brought up feelings of love and comfort that were tied to that old hymn.
Third, singing releases chemicals that actually are helpful to our bodies when we’re living with caregiver stress. There’s a whole series of feel-good chemicals like seratonin, our mood regulator, oxytocin, which enables us to bond with people, and endorphins. This last group of chemicals not only help us to feel good, they actually can give our immune system a boost. That’s important because the hormones released when we’re under stress will attack our immune system.
Why not sing with your loved one? Sing what you both like, whether it’s hymns, praise choruses, Broadway tunes, folk songs or classic rock. If you don’t think you sing well, get a recording of what you both like and sing along with it. Trust me, you’ll both feel better.
And if you want to find some of these highly interesting books, look for authors Oliver Sacks, M.D. and Daniel Levitin in addition to Robert Jourdain.
Blessings, Joanne