The neuroscience of singing: How choirs help our brains and bodies recover from burnout

Cheep Trill is just one of hundreds of community choirs around Australia focused on cultivating a community around creativity. (Supplied: Katie Cassidy)

For some, the sensation feels like fireworks exploding out of their brain into the night sky.

For others, there’s a kind of buzz — electricity or vibration. Goosebumps cover their whole body.

“A bit like a warm hug.” A moment of “collective happiness”, “clarity”, and feeling totally grounded. Entering some kind of “flow state”.

This is what it’s like to sing in harmony as part of a community choir.

Humans have come together in song for — at least — tens of thousands of years. Through ancient songlines and sacred hymns, in times of celebration and in grief.

And if you ask any of those who dedicate a window of their everyday lives to this practice, they’ll tell you just how good it feels.

Many say it’s a form of therapy, and that without it, they’re not sure they would survive.

Scientists have been singing the praises of choirs for decades. These musical gatherings seem to support social and emotional wellbeing for all sorts of groups — among small or large crowds, those with established connections and those who are just getting to know each other, and across cultures.

Researchers have established how group singing can support and even facilitate recovery in patients with Parkinson’s disease, post-natal depression and some types of cancer — and they say they’ve only just begun to scratch the surface on the cognitive possibilities.

A safe place to recover and reconnect

Emily Fleming went in search of a choir as part of her recovery from chronic illnesses that worsened after an episode of severe burnout.

In her mid-20s, Emily was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS. She became so unwell she was unable to leave her house for about a year, feeling isolated, disconnected, and confused about the road to recovery.

“Most health professionals would say, ‘this is something you’ll have forever, you won’t ever be able to run again, you won’t be able to go out and do the things you used to do’, which is just devastating. And so I guess in the back of my mind, I’d always thought that recovery for me looks like getting back into the community,” she says.

When Emily eventually became well enough to venture out into the world again, she set her sights on a community choir run by Brisbane musician Emma Dean.

“I had wanted to join a choir for so long because I loved music at school, it was a big part of my life. And then as an adult, I felt like there was a part of me missing … I thought, I’m just gonna do it. Because I think it’s what my soul is longing for.”

It’s a common refrain at Cheep Trill. Every week, choristers gather in community halls — one on Brisbane’s north side and one on the south — to sing together. Manager Corinne Buzianczuk and musical assistant Tony Dean lead the choir in a physical and vocal warm-up before Emma takes the reins to work on the one of the arrangements she’s been teaching the group for their end-of-term performance.

Section by section, sopranos, altos, tenors and basses practise their do-dos and woah-ohs, listening intently and frequently bursting into applause when their fellow singers nail a phrase — or a kind giggle when someone flubs a lyric.

There’s a break for tea and biccies before switching to a fresh song for the second half of rehearsals. A hum of friendly chatter fills the hall once more as people stack and pack away the chairs, wash up the mugs and wander back out into the night.

From her first rehearsal, Emily says she felt an instant connection with her fellow singers.

“Choir people are just the best, because it’s so inclusive …  I didn’t get to connect with people for such a long time and so I do miss having that kind of connection with people of different ages. That for me has been what Cheep Trill has given me — intergenerational friendships,” she says.

“To have this community of people that are from different walks of life, and in different stages of life, and to really understand that we’re kind of going through the same thing.”

This sense of community is more than just a hunch — there’s an extensive volume of research that shows how singing as part of a group can alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation, and increase self-efficacy and self-esteem.

Researchers led by Genevieve Dingle, director of clinical psychology programs at the University of Queensland, have found choirs are particularly powerful for people experiencing chronic ill health or significant social disadvantages.

Rockelle Duffy, who joined Cheep Trill in 2023, says it has been a lifeline — a safe space in a particularly dark period.

She had been struggling with what she now understands is functional neurological disorder and fibromyalgia on top of a major depressive disorder and anxiety. Like Emily, Rockelle became unable to work or leave her home.

“I found that I was really reclusive. I had incredibly terrifying dark thoughts constantly running in my brain, screaming at me … I became fearful of going out. So while that’s going on in one part of my mind, this little creative spark kept trying to light up and grab my attention,” Rockelle says.

She decided to join Cheep Trill after accompanying a friend and long-term member, David Truong.

“I remember going the first night of that term … I just was turned into this blubbering mess. I was streaming tears, my nose was full of snot, my body was shaking … I felt really safe just to sit there and go through whatever was going on for me,” Rockelle says.

“During the course of that term, one of the few things that would get me out of the house aside from attending to the multitude of medical appointments and so forth was choir.”

Through the choir, Rockelle has been able to connect with her creativity, process difficult emotions and explore new opportunities — she’s started singing in a rock band and writing her own music.

But she says the biggest change has been regaining her self-worth and learning to show up for herself day after day.

What’s happening to our bodies when we sing together?

It perhaps goes without saying that in a room full of self-confessed musical theatre nerds, there’s a lot of talk about feelings. But the benefits of group singing go beyond the mushy stuff.

Professor Sarah Wilson, a clinical psychologist credited with pioneering music neuroscience research in Australia, explains it as “an internal therapy tool” that engages several parts of the brain at once.

That “singing network”, as Professor Wilson calls it, includes areas that control complex motor activity, auditory processing, language, emotion and memory.

Vocal motor control networks activate and coordinate the right muscles to project our voice and manage our airflow. Auditory and language networks help us to pitch our notes correctly, adjust our volume and sing the right lyrics.

Professor Wilson explains that in choir singing, higher level executive functions are also involved, “making sure we come in at the right time, on the right note, and that hold note in our mind … timing it and coordinating relative to the music and the other singers”.

Long-term, engaging in musical activities has been shown to support neuroplasticity — that is, the ability to heal and adapt, creating new pathways over time — in healthy ageing brains.

Some of Professor Wilson’s work has focused on using singing, through Melodic Intonation Therapy, to help rehabilitate speech in patients recovering from severe strokes.

“We’re watching their brain rewire itself, in real time, and switching back on parts of the language network to support their rehabilitation and brain plasticity,” she says.

“So it’s a really powerful, innate tool … both for our brain plasticity and cognitive health, but also our mental health.”

There are also physiological factors at play — our heartbeats and breathing sync up when we sing together.

Both Emily and Rockelle say they’ve noticed the regular practice has helped in other ways, too.

“I first thought that it would be purely for my mental health … What I wasn’t expecting was how much of a physical difference [choir] has made for me,” Emily says.

“With the conditions that I have, standing up for a long period of time is really challenging. With choir, for two hours a week [I’m] standing up and down, and just sort of practising those movements. So that has really improved my standing tolerance.”

Rockelle says singing has become part of her “self-deigned therapy program” in managing her FND and chronic pain.

“When my body doesn’t want to behave the way we think it should, when the signals aren’t working properly, I tune into music. I get out the choir [guide tracks], and I look at the [sheet music] … and I’ll sway and I’ll dance on the spot. It gets that cognitive conversation happening … to get me moving again,” she says.

Rockelle says learning about how to engage and switch between her chest voice and head voice has been helpful for regulating her breathing during bouts of extreme anxiety or panic attacks.

The academic jury is still out on exactly how singing in a group affects our levels of oxytocin — that warm, fuzzy feel-good brain chemical.

Professor Wilson says we know singing directly activates the brain’s reward network, and there is evidence to suggest choir practice can reduce cortisol levels — an indicator of stress — and even boost immune function.

In two recent studies that measured hormone response in choir singers — one from the University of Regensburg in 2017, and a smaller pilot study from the University of Toronto in Canada in 2021 — researchers found that positive effects of singing were more pronounced after group singing compared with solo singing.

In addition, Professor Wilson explains that choir singing engages the mirror neuron system, which plays a powerful part in social bonding.

“When we have a verbal conversation, we can’t do it together, we have to take turns — otherwise, it’s impossible, we’re just talking over each other. Whereas singing is this one chance where we get to use our voices in unison,” she says.

“Our brain activity is mirroring each other. That activates our own circuitry, and it helps us put ourselves in their shoes. And that facilitates that bonding that we experience when we’re singing in a choir.”

Cultivating a community around creativity

Cheep Trill is just one of the hundreds — possibly thousands — of community choirs in Australia that focus on bringing amateur singers together in a non-auditioned and non-competitive format.

The purpose of these groups is as much about connection as it is about crafting perfect harmonies.

That people feel supported, welcomed, and held in this space is no coincidence. It’s a culture that every single one of the dozen or so ‘Trillers’ who spoke to the ABC puts down — at least in part — to their musical director, Emma Dean.

In 2014, Emma had been slogging it out to make a name in New York, working as a kids’ entertainer and performing late-night opening sets for off-Broadway drag and cabaret artists, making very little money and careening towards total burnout.

With her marriage falling apart and a deep depression setting in, Emma says she had reached rock bottom when a friend suggested that she should start a choir.

And so she returned to Brisbane and started singing with a small group of musical mates on a friend’s verandah. Something clicked into place — watching other people shine gave Emma a new purpose.

“This choir, this strange little group of people who gathered on this verandah, saved me. Really genuinely saved my life,” she says.

“They saved my love of music, because I kind of felt like music had betrayed me at some point. I knew that that wasn’t completely the truth, but I knew I had to reignite the spark I felt for music.”

In the 10 years since, the choir has evolved into a buzzing community of singers from all walks of life, welcoming fresh faces and expanding their repertoire each term.

It’s seen new friendships blossom, family ties strengthen, and set the backdrop for at least one marriage proposal.

There are practical and intentional decisions that have allowed Cheep Trill to grow — finding a space that wheelchair users and singers with assistance dogs can navigate seamlessly, making sure there are vegan and gluten-free snacks available during the break, crafting arrangements that share melodies equally between parts, and working on creative solutions for singers with particular sensory needs.

Many community choirs have found ways to offer concessions on term fees or open up sponsored spots for choristers to pay it forward for singers who don’t have the financial means to join.

Emma says above all, she tries to conduct and teach in a way that “creates a space that is safe for people to explore their voice, to explore their creativity”, without fear of judgement.

“We’re not doing brain surgery. We’re just singing a song. I actually quite like mistakes. They’re fabulous,” she says.

“It’s also about facilitating a meeting place where people who have never come across other sorts of people are kind of forced to listen to each other.”

Whatever the reasons behind it, there’s just something magical that happens when people sing together.

What does it feel like to sing together in a choir?

On an almost-chilly Saturday morning earlier this month, the hundred-or-so Cheep Trillers gathered to share that magic with crowds wandering through the West End markets.

Diligently dressed in their brightest colours, the northside and southside chapters came together to perform four pieces for a small crowd under the shade of a mighty fig tree on the banks of the Brisbane River.

After 10 weeks spent working towards their creative debut, it was a big moment.

Rockelle noticed the feelings in her body, like “a ray of sunshine” penetrating from head to toe.

“My ears are soothed, my tummy settles and my heart swells with love,” she says. “I feel light, I feel bright. I feel like I’m worthy. And that there’s something here for me — let’s keep going.”

For Emily, it was a feeling of pure clarity. “Like that is the only thing that I’m thinking of in that moment. I’m not even thinking of the fact that I’m singing and remembering the words, I’m just thinking about how it sounds together, how we’re blending our voices together.”

There’s a synchrony, too, in the way these singers talk about working creatively towards a common goal.

“That’s the power of a choir. It’s supportive, like you’re an instrument in an orchestra, and everyone’s voice is part of that,” says Piet, who adds Cheep Trill has become like “a second family”.

Liz Bremer joined this term as part of a challenge to herself after her father’s death to do something each year that scares her.

“When it clicks, everybody starts to sound like one voice and you sort of don’t even hear yourself. And that’s when as soon as the song’s finished, you just feel elated. It’s really energising,” she says.

“It feels electric,” adds her new friend Lucy, another alto-slash-tenor who’s new to Cheep Trill. “There’s something beautiful about doing something where you can mess up and maybe embarrass yourself in public, but then you don’t … even if you sing off-key or you accidentally sing the wrong lyric, it is such a safe place.”

Lucy passes the mic back to Liz: “It reminds you that you’re not alone.”

Professor Wilson calls it kama muta, a Sanskrit phrase that roughly translates to “being moved by love”.

“It’s that real sense of being moved by music … and being part of maybe something that’s bigger, a communal sense, a higher connection,” she says.

In fact, this suspected link between music and feelings of nostalgia or kama muta is currently under investigation by one of Professor Wilson’s PhD students at the University of Melbourne. That research is still underway, but Professor Wilson says the hypothesis is that this overwhelming communal feeling is an important evolutionary function of music.

On a basic level, Emma says there is “this great joy, and a great relief that comes from being a part of something bigger than yourself”.

“Singing solo is a very different experience to singing in a group … you feel lifted, you feel supported by so many other people around you,” she says.

“You are creating something so special, that is not only making the people in the choir happy, but also the people listening to it. You’re giving this incredible gift to people witnessing this magic.”

Again, the science supports that sentiment. Another study from Professor Dingle and her fellow UQ researchers in 2023 found that watching a choir performance “can foster admiration, respect and positive regard toward choristers” among members of the audience.

The crowd watching Cheep Trill seemed to agree. Uplifting, engaging, playful, a little bit whimsical — a good vibe all round, was how some enjoying the performance put it afterwards.

They did notice, however, one singer standing towards the back who became a bit teary during a moving rendition of REM’s Nightswimming. Overcome with emotion, perhaps. The choir sang on while she gathered herself — it’s a safe space, after all.