Singing and Mental Health

• Clift, S., Manship, S., Stephens, L., 2017. Further evidence that singing fosters mental health and wellbeing: Findings from the West Kent and Medway project. Social Inclusion and Mental Health 21, 53–62.
• Clift, S., Morrison, I., 2011. Group Singing fosters mental health and wellbeing: findings from the East Kent “singing for health” network project. Mental Health and Social Inclusion 15, 88–97. https://doi.org/10.1108/20428301111140930
• Clift, S.M., Hancox, G., 2001. The perceived benefits of singing findings from preliminary surveys of a university college choral society. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 121, 248–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/146642400112100409
• Coulton, S., Clift, S., Skingley, A., Rodriguez, J., 2015. Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of community singing on mental health-related quality of life of older people: randomised controlled trial. British Journal of Psychiatry 207, 250–255. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.113.129908
• Dingle, G., Clift, S., Finn, S., Gilbert, R., Groarke, J., Irons, J.Y., Bartoli, A., Lamont, A., Launay, J., Martin, E., Moss, H., Sanfilippo, K.R., Shipton, M., Stewart, L., Talbot, S., Tarrant, M., Tip, L., Williams, E., 2019. An Agenda for Best Practice Research on Group Singing, Health, and Well-Being. Music and Science 2, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059204319861719
• Dingle, G., Williams, E., Jetten, J., Welch, J., 2017. Choir singing and creative writing enhance emotion regulation in adults with chronic mental health conditions. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 56, 443–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjc.12149
• Fancourt, D., Williamon, A., Carvalho, L.A., Steptoe, A., Dow, R., Lewis, I., 2016. Singing modulates mood, stress, cortisol, cytokine and neuropeptide activity in cancer patients and carers. ecancer 10. https://doi.org/10.3332/ecancer.2016.631
• Livesey, L., Morrison, I., Clift, S., Camic, P., 2012. Benefits of choral singing for social and mental wellbeing: qualitative findings from a cross-national survey of choir members. Journal of Public Mental Health 11, 10–26. https://doi.org/10.1108/1746572121207275
• NICE, 2015. Older people - independence and mental wellbeing (Guidelines No. NG32), NICE Guidelines. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, London.
• Shakespeare, T., Whieldon, A., 2017. Sing Your Heart Out: community singing as part of mental health recovery. University of East Anglia, Norfolk.
• Skingley, A., Bungay, H., 2010. The Silver Song Club Project: singing to promote the health of older people. British Journal of Community Nursing 15, 135–140. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2010.15.3.46902
• Why music is great for your mental health | Mind, the mental health charity - help for mental health problems, n.d.
• Williams, E., Dingle, G.A., Clift, S., 2018. A systematic review of mental health and wellbeing outcomes of group singing for adults with a mental health condition. European Journal of Public Health cky115–cky115. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky115

Singing and Mental Health

Connecting Theory and Practice

Dr. Dave Camlin

dave.camlin@rcm.ac.uk

+44(0) 7580 078924

Wellbeing

Spirit

(Clift, 2013; Clift, Manship and Stephens, 2017; Shakespeare and Whieldon, 2017; Dingle et al., 2019)

Strong spiritual dimension to singing (Clift and Hancox 2001; Latimer 2008; Tonneijck et al. 2008).

Mood

Social

INDIVIDUAL

Mood enhancing (Bailey and Davidson 2002, 2005; Burkeman, 2015; Bungay et al. 2010; Clift et al. 2008b, 2010b; Clift and Hancox 2001, 2010; Clift, Manship and Stephens, 2017; NICE, 2015; Palmer 2008; Shakespeare and Whieldon, 2017; Williams, Dingle and Clift, 2018)

Energising / Relaxing

A physical activity which is both ‘energizing and relaxing’ and can help to relieve stress and tension (Bailey and Davidson 2003; Tonneijck et al. 2008; Jacob et al. 2009).

Distraction

Love / Feeling 'Felt'

Distract attention from personal worries (Clift and Hancox 2010; Clift et al. 2010b).

When we attune to others we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another. This resonance is at the heart of the important sense of “feeling felt” that emerges in close relationships. Children need attunement to feel secure and to develop well, and throughout our lives we need attunement to feel close and connected. (Siegel 2011, p.27)

Also see (Lewis, Amini and Lannon, 2001; Dunbar, 2013, pp. 16–19; Camlin, 2015)

Dementia

Improve lucidity, mood, focus and to relax for PWD and their carers. (Davidson & Almeida 2014)

Breathing

Postnatal Depression

Helps to improve breathing and lung capacity, improves voice quality, and promotes good posture (Clift and Hancox 2001; Clift et al. 2009).

Physical Health

"Group singing workshops could help speed the recovery from symptoms of PND among new mothers"

(Fancourt & Perkins 2018)

?

If many of the benefits of group singing are relational / social, how valid is it to infer inter-personal outcomes from intra-personal effects?

The individual is 'the wrong unit of anlysis' (SIAP cited in Crossick et al 2016)

(BBC Health Check, no date; Kreutz et al., 2003, 2004; Skingley et al., 2011; Clift et al., 2013; Morrison and Clift, 2013)

Stress

Mental

Health

"Singing modulates mood, stress, cortisol, cytokine and neuropeptide activity in cancer patients and carers." (Fancourt et al 2016)

Assists in the maintenance and recovery of mental health

(Clift et. al. 2017; Clift & Morrison 2011; Clift & Hancox 2001; Coulton et. al. 2015; Dingle et. al. 2019; Dingle et. al. 2017; Fancourt et. al. 2016; Livesey et. al. 2012; NICE 2015; Shakespeare & Whieldon 2017; Skingley & Bungay 2010;

MIND n.d.; Williams et. al. 2018)

Personal Development

Help to develop skills, self-confidence, self-esteem, and a sense of achievement (Bailey and Davidson 2002, 2005; Silber 2005).

Social Bonding

Singing brings people together and helps to create a sense of group identity, social support and friendship (Bungay et al. 2010; Clift and Hancox 2001; Lally 2009; Latimer 2008; Livesey et al., 2012; Southcott 2009; Welch et al., 2014).

PARAMUSICAL

ECONOMIC

CULTURAL

Performance-as-Participation

Participation-as-Performance

Aesthetic

Participatory

MUSICAL

Performing 'works'

Performing 'relationships'

'Preliminary studies have shown that music listening and performing modulate levels of serotonin, epinepherine, dopamine, oxytocin, and prolactin' (Levitin et al 2017, p.1)

'singing in particular can reduce levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, cortisone and progesterone and increase social bonding including the release of oxytocin' (Fancourt et al 2016 p.2)

listening to music and making music provokes motions and emotions, increases between-subject communications and interactions, and—mediated via neurohormones such as serotonin and dopamine—is experienced as a joyous and rewarding activity through activity changes in amygdala, ventral striatum, and other components of the limbic system. (Altenmüller and Schlaug 2013)

'Explanations of social bonding during group musical activities should include reference to endorphins, which are released during synchronized exertive movements.' (Tarr et al 2014)

See also (Bernatzky et al., 2013; Kreutz, Quiroga Murcia and Bongard, 2013; Levitin, Mallik and Chanda, 2017; Macdonald and Macdonald, 2010)

'Resonance circuitry' attunemment inc. heartrate variability and Mirror Neuron System (MNS) synchronisation

(Lewis et al 2001; Molnar-Szakacs and Overy, 2006; Siegel 2016;

Vickhoff et al., 2013)

'A phenomenon in

which two or more independent rhythmic processes synchronize with each other... a process whereby two rhythmic processes interact with each other in such a way that they adjust towards and eventually ‘lock in’ to a common phase and/or periodicity'

(Clayton et al 2004; Clayton 2012; Daffern, 2017; Keil, 1987; Knight, Spiro and Cross, 2016)

MECHANISM/S

"entities and activities organized in such a way that they are responsible for the phenomenon." (Illari & Williamson 2012)