Along with the brain, the heart helps keep you alive by delivering the essential nutrients and oxygen throughout the body. It also carries wastes, such as carbon dioxide, so that you can expel them.
The heart is one of the strongest organs you have. Imagine, it could pump 71 grams of blood every time it beats. It could also beat over 2.2 billion times-double that of other animals, such as pigs and horses.
Like any hard worker, the heart could also experience burnout. When it does, it can be life-threatening. Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, regardless of gender and ethnicity. At least one person dies every 37 seconds, according to the CDC.
Fortunately, although it has a genetic factor, most cases are preventable. One strategy is to sing!
How Singing Can Help Reduce Cardiac Problems
Taking music lessons improve not only the brain but also enhance the function of the heart. These studies will explain:
1. It Can Modulate the Heartbeat
The heart can flutter (or feel”jumpy”) for many reasons, such as anxiety, thyroid dysfunction, or cardiac issues. Regardless, you don’t want it to happen often since it can still injure the muscles in the long-term.
Singing can help you. In a 2013 study in frontiers, people who sing in a choir could modulate their heartbeat, synchronizing it. It could help bring down your heartbeat to normal.
But even if you don’t sing with a group, you might still get similar results. You need to do only to sing along with the music.
2. It Helps Lower the Stress
Why does the heartbeat faster when you’re stressed? It’s more than psychological.
When you’re under a lot of stress, the body initiates a flight-or-fight response. The adrenal glands release stress hormones, such as cortisol. This one stimulates many physiological changes, two of which are increased heart rate and blood pressure.
These changes are necessary to keep you alert and focused so that you can manage your stress or better. The problem is many are already chronically stressed.
Singing can reduce the feelings of stress by helping the brain create two essential neurotransmitters:endorphins andoxytocin.
Endorphins make you feel pleasure, mainly since they also boost the production of dopamine. This combo is excellent for people who are also prone to pain when stressed. Both can regulate your perception of body aches.
Meanwhile, the love hormone oxytocin dampens abnormal levels of cortisol. It could then help lower your heart rate and blood pressure. It also decreases symptoms or feelings of anxiety, which usually occurs when you’re under a lot of stress.
3. It Could Strengthen the Immune System
A 2016 study revealed the powerful effects of singing: it could enhance the immune system of cancer patients. One reason is reduced chronic inflammation.
Inflammation is our body’s natural response to threats. It explains why you develop a fever when you have a bacterial or a viral infection. It increases your body’s temperature to create a hostile environment for the pathogens. It also signals that your immune system is protecting you.
However, often, inflammation becomes chronic. It is often low-grade, so you won’t know it’s happening until it affects your healthy organs and tissues, such as the heart.
Many factors can cause chronic inflammation, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, and eating a lot of processed foods. But one of the crucial factors is chronic stress.
Fortunately, singing can already help you manage it more effectively. Then you’re doing your immune system a favour.
Singing your heart out is not just an idiom. These studies show it has a physiological basis too.
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