Singing together is something beautiful. We experience it in many places: at church, in a choir, at family gatherings, during celebrations, or simply when friends join in a familiar song. Voices that differ in age, strength, tone, and ability somehow come together and create something that no single voice could create alone.

Singing is especially meaningful within our Catholic tradition. At Mass, we sing the Gloria, the Alleluia, the Holy, Holy, the responsorial psalm, hymns, and other acclamations of praise and thanksgiving. The Church places great importance on singing in the liturgy. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal teaches that singing expresses the joy within our hearts and encourages both ministers and the faithful to participate in singing, especially on Sundays and holy days (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB], General Instruction of the Roman Missal, nos. 39–41).

Yet singing does not have to occur within the walls of a church to affect us. We sing while driving, working around the house, celebrating birthdays, gathering with family, attending concerts, or simply because a favorite song comes to mind.

Could this simple human activity contribute to our well-being and, in some sense, even to healing?

What Research Tells Us About Singing

Science cannot tell us that singing will cure a particular disease, and we should avoid making such a claim. Healing, however, can mean more than curing an illness. A person may experience comfort, peace, connection, hope, and renewed strength even while living with sickness or other difficulties.

Research suggests that singing, particularly singing with others, may contribute to several dimensions of well-being.

A systematic review published in the European Journal of Public Health examined group singing among adults living with mental health conditions. The researchers included 13 studies involving 667 participants. The review found encouraging evidence that group singing may improve mental health and well-being. At the same time, the researchers noted limitations in the available evidence and emphasized the need for stronger studies (Williams, Dingle, & Clift, 2018).

Another review examined 19 studies involving people with and without chronic health conditions. Group singing was generally associated with improvements in psychological and physiological well-being, including reported benefits involving mood, anxiety, depression, and social interaction (Campbell, Bodkin-Allen, & Swain, 2022). However, the available research does not allow us to conclude that singing alone caused all these improvements.

This is an important distinction. Singing should never be presented as a replacement for appropriate medical or psychological care. Rather, it may be one of the many ordinary human activities that can support our overall well-being.

Why Might Singing Together Help Us?

Part of the answer may be found in what happens when people sing together. Singing involves breathing, listening, attention, vocal expression, and coordination. When we sing in a group, we also share rhythm, melody, words, and a common activity.

Researchers have investigated whether group singing affects emotional states, social connection, and biological processes linked to stress and social bonding. In one experimental study, singing together was associated with positive changes in emotional state and feelings of social connectedness. Researchers also examined hormones including oxytocin, cortisol, and testosterone, although these biological findings were more complex and should be interpreted cautiously (Good et al., 2022).

The social dimension may be especially important. When we sing together, we are doing something together. For a few moments, we are not simply individuals standing beside one another. We listen to one another, adjust to one another, breathe together, and contribute our individual voices to something larger.

We Have Always Sung

This may help explain why singing appears across so many parts of human life. We sing at weddings and funerals. We sing when we celebrate and sometimes when we grieve. Parents sing to their children. Communities sing during important occasions. People also sing when they are alone.

Sometimes a song expresses something that ordinary words cannot.

A grieving person may hear a familiar song and remember someone who has died. A family singing together may rediscover a sense of connection. Someone feeling lonely may join a choir and experience belonging. A person singing alone in the car may simply discover that his or her mood feels a little lighter afterward.

These experiences should not be confused with curing disease. But they remind us that human well-being has emotional, social, physical, and spiritual dimensions.

When Singing Becomes Prayer

For people of faith, singing can have another dimension: singing can become prayer.

This is particularly evident in the Catholic liturgy. We do not sing at Mass simply because music makes the celebration more enjoyable. Singing is part of the prayer and worship of the Church. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal emphasizes the importance of singing and the active participation of the faithful in the liturgical celebration (USCCB, GIRM, nos. 39–41). Interestingly, researchers have also studied what Catholics experience when they sing together at Mass.

In a 2020 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, researchers surveyed 1,603 Catholics from German-speaking countries about congregational singing during Roman Catholic Mass. Participants associated singing with experiences of community and spirituality, and these experiences were related to their religious and musical attitudes (Wald-Fuhrmann et al., 2020).

This does not prove that singing at Mass produces spiritual experiences or medical healing. But it does suggest something many worshippers may already recognize from their own experience. Singing together can contribute to a sense of belonging and can accompany the spiritual experience of worship.

For Christians, however, the meaning goes deeper than measurable psychological benefits. We do not sing primarily because singing might reduce stress or improve our mood. We sing because we are worshipping God.

Our voices become part of our prayer.

The person carrying grief may discover words for feelings that are difficult to express. The lonely person may hear the voices of the congregation and remember that he or she belongs to a community. The anxious person may experience a moment of peace. The weary person may sing words of hope even when hope is difficult to feel.

And sometimes something beautiful happens: we begin by singing the words, and gradually the words begin to speak to us.

Singing and Holistic Healing

Perhaps, then, we can carefully speak of singing as something that may contribute to holistic healing.

Singing engages the body through breathing and vocalization. It engages the mind through attention and memory. It touches our emotions through melody and words. Singing with others may strengthen our sense of social connection. Research on group singing provides some evidence for these psychological and social benefits (Williams et al., 2018; Campbell et al., 2022).

When singing becomes prayer, it adds another dimension. For a person of faith, singing can become a way of expressing gratitude, sorrow, hope, trust, and praise before God. Research can investigate some of the psychological and social experiences associated with religious singing (Wald-Fuhrmann et al., 2020), but the meaning of prayer for a believer cannot be reduced simply to measurable psychological effects.

None of this means that singing will remove illness, grief, anxiety, loneliness, or the difficulties of life. The scientific evidence is encouraging but still developing, and many studies have limitations.

But healing does not always mean that everything hurting us disappears.

Sometimes healing means finding peace in the middle of difficulty. Sometimes it means rediscovering joy. Sometimes it means realizing that we are not alone. Sometimes it means finding a way to express grief that we could not put into ordinary words.

And sometimes healing may begin with something as simple as a song.

So, whether you are singing in church, with a choir, with your family, while driving, or quietly by yourself, perhaps there is good reason not to be embarrassed by your voice.

You do not have to be a great singer to experience the gift of singing.

And when you stand at Mass and join your voice with the congregation, remember that you are doing something even greater. You are not simply producing music. You are joining your prayer to the Church’s prayer and offering your voice in praise of God.

Sometimes healing begins not with an answer, but with a song.

Sources

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, 28(6), 1035–1042. PubMed PMID: 29982515.

Campbell, Q., Bodkin-Allen, S., & Swain, N. (2022). “Group singing improves both physical and psychological wellbeing in people with and without chronic health conditions: A narrative review.” Journal of Health Psychology, 27(8), 1897–1912. PubMed PMID: 33913360.

Good, A., et al. (2022). “Endogenous oxytocin, cortisol, and testosterone in response to group singing.” Hormones and Behavior. PubMed PMID: 34999566.

Wald-Fuhrmann, M., Boenneke, S., Vroegh, T., & Dannecker, K. P. (2020). “‘He Who Sings, Prays Twice’? Singing in Roman Catholic Mass Leads to Spiritual and Social Experiences That Are Predicted by Religious and Musical Attitudes.” Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 570189.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, nos. 39–41, “The Importance of Singing.”