Hi! I’m Dr. Jamison Starbuck, a naturopathic family physician. I’m here today with health tips for kids about: singing.
Do re mi fa so la ti do. Do you know that singing is one of the very best things that kids can do for their health?
If we made a list of the important things you can do to be healthy, it would be: a good diet (lots of fruit and vegetables), exercise outside in fresh air, good sleep every night, and SINGING.
It turns out that scientists have studied singing a lot. They’ve studied the effects of singing on tiny babies and on older people and people doing hard things like having surgery or taking tests. Scientists have also researched the effects of singing on young children and teenagers – and they’ve concluded that singing is very good for kids. Your brain, your body and your mood are all helped by singing.
Singing helps your brain get smarter. When you sing, you multi-task – that means doing several things at once. When we sing we listen, we use words and memory, and we learn how to use our voice in a new way. When you multi-task by learning and singing a new song, you learn how to focus and concentrate. These are wonderful skills to help you do well with homework and tests and projects.
Singing is good for improving your language skills. You learn how to pronounce words; you learn new words and even foreign words. Singing can also help kids learn to read. Did you ever hear a really little kid singing the alphabet song? They don’t even know what the letters mean but they know what the letters sound like and that’s the first step in in learning to read.
Singing is good for your body because singing makes you breathe in lots of air and use the muscles in your chest and neck. When you stand to sing and sway to the music, your whole body gets involved. Singing helps your mood because it’s calming and stress relieving. Maybe your parents sang lullabies or played music to help you go to sleep when you were young. When we sing, our bodies make endorphins which are chemicals that help us feel good.
Music can help us feel better if we are sad; music can make us feel excited and alive and ready to tackle the world. We can express our opinions and share ideas with the songs we sing.
Finally, singing is important because it’s really fun. You can sing with friends, you can sing with your family, in your church, your school or all alone in the shower. A wonderful thing about singing is that there are so many ways to do it. It’s not like soccer or hockey that have rules about what you can or cannot do. With singing you can do what you want. As long as you are not disturbing people or interrupting, sing out!
Singing is very good medicine. My advice is to welcome it into your life, every day. In fact why not sing right now, along with this song I bet you know.
I’m Dr. Jamison Starbuck and I’m wishing you well.
