Recently, I saw a lot of information online which claim that singing can help people lose weight. It seemed to be unbelievable. However, singing, as a leisure activity, actually has some impacts to our health, not only to the weight, but also to the body function.
Whether singing can help lose weight is still a controversial issue. There was a research indicated that singing cannot burn as much calories as running or gym workout, but “singing standing up will burn a number of calories comparable to walking, yoga or light housework.” It also showed that how much calories burned depends the weight of each individual and the intensity of the movement. However, another small studies indicated that although singing can bring cardiovascular benefits, it is unlikely to lose weight. Besides, there was a study even claimed that singing may incline to weight gain.
On the other hand, singing do affects people’s body function. A study of four singers, which was done in 2006, concentrated on how the specific muscle groups and body zones reacted in operatic singing after training for three semesters. It “measured lung volume and rib cage and abdominal expansion”. The results showed that “respiratory system is highly responsive to vocal training over even a short period”. Moreover, there was a study, which is done by the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, indicated that singers’ heartbeats synchronize as they harmonize and made the entire room of musicians relaxed finally. This result showed that singing can not only affect the heartbeats of the singers, but also affect the people around the singers. According to these studies, we can see that there is a correlation between singing and our body function.
No matter whether singing can help people lose weight, singing is still one of the ways for people to release stress. From the studies above, singing might help people burn calories. Besides, it also affects our respiratory system and other body function. Start singing now!
Sources:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/325132-how-many-calories-are-burned-from-singing/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/science/01qna.html?_r=1&
http://www.groupanizer.com/blog/does-singing-affect-your-overall-health
I love to sing so I was immediately drawn to this blog. I do find it very hard to believe that singing can help to lose weight. I do think that performing can definitely burn calories. There are a lot of different muscles that are involved in singing so I do think it would be a good workout. I agree that singing can harmonize your body functions and heart beat, which I think is amazing. Music is definitely capable of doing these things. I think you should totally expand on the effects of music on your body functions as well! Above all, singing is definitely proven to be one of the best stress relievers for anyone! Thanks for sharing!
I am reading this blog because it relates to singing. I am not a singer but I love singing. I sing when I walk, I sing when I do my homework, and I sing when I listen to music. And my singing does affect people around me – they are not fans of my singing… I am glad that now I have a perfect excuse to sing – It makes me lose weight and have a stronger heart. I love this article and I will tell people how good singing is, and encourage everyone to thing. To the end, what is most important about sing is that it is such a happy thing to do.
This is such an interesting topic and I really enjoyed reading your blog. After reading this, it makes sense to me why I always just sing whenever I can. Even though I know I don’t have the best voice I sing anyways since it helps me relax and relieve stress! Also, I never really thought of singing as a way to lose weight but thats pretty awesome if it helps that!
Hello, I really appreciate this piece of blog. I think it mentioned a part that people usually ignored which is sing can actually burn calories and fat. Actually people can hardly image why singing can help you keep a healthier body outlook. Most of the time, singing is related to a way of express ourselves however, it can even proves our respiratory system and other body functions which is quite interesting and amazing. Just image that we can become healthier by singing. What a great idea!
This article was really interesting, I really focused on the part about singing relieving stress.I think that would be something to go into even more detail in because that is a relaxation method that I never heard of that I think can help a lot of people. I thought to myself why does singing relieve stressed and thought maybe it was because we are doing different types of breathing which is known to help us relax. Just like in yoga, when people do breathing exercises, singers do them in a way too. When I was in chorus we always did breathing exercises before we began. I think it would be interesting to do a study with yoga students and singers and to see how relaxed they felt after performing their activites.
This is such a cool concept that I never knew was controversial. I never heard of the fact that if you are singing you can burn calories. There is a lot of speculation about whether this is true or not, but I do find it very interesting, and will be singing standing up much more now that I know this. I also agree that singing helps relieve stress even if you are the worst singer in the world, random dance parties and sing alongs are the easiest way to make new friends and break out of your shell, and apparently lose weight while you’re at it.