Choir Singing: My Medicine for Grief and Life

Written by Tone Tellefsen Hughes - Director of Luck’s Yard Clinic, and proud sponsor of the Cloisters Stage

This June 13th, ChoirBLAST, now in its fourth year, will bring together over 100 choirs from across the UK and Europe. It is more than a festival; it is an invitation to experience the science and the soul of singing together... connection, regulation, and collective joy, all in one place. There are moments in life when words simply aren’t enough.

Grief lives in the body. It sits in the chest, tightens the throat, interrupts the breath. And yet, somehow, singing does what speaking cannot. It opens something. It moves something. It allows feeling to flow again.

Tone is on the left in the front row

For me, choir singing has become a kind of medicine - not in the way a tablet fixes something, but in the way it gently, repeatedly brings me back to myself, and to others. And science is beginning to explain why.

The chemistry of being held

When we sing, especially together - our bodies change.

Research shows that singing can increase oxytocin, often called the “bonding hormone,” which is linked to trust, connection and emotional safety. This is the same chemical involved in close relationships, in soothing, in feeling held.

At the same time, singing stimulates the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, which can create a sense of warmth, lightness and even euphoria.

There is also evidence that musical engagement influences dopamine (linked to reward and motivation) and serotonin (linked to mood stability and wellbeing), helping to explain why singing can lift us even when we arrive feeling heavy .

This isn’t abstract. You can feel it:

• the breath deepening

• the shoulders softening

• the subtle shift from isolation to connection

It is biology meeting experience.

Why singing together matters more

Interestingly, it’s not just singing, it’s singing together that seems to amplify these effects.

Studies comparing solo and choir singing show that group singing leads to stronger improvements in mood, social connection and emotional wellbeing .

Why?

Because when we sing in a choir, we begin to synchronise. This synchrony is more than musical, it’s neurological and relational. Researchers describe it as a form of “limbic resonance” - where our nervous systems begin to attune to each other:

• our breathing aligns

• our heart rhythms begin to coordinate

• our voices blend into something shared

In grief, where we can feel profoundly alone, this shared regulation is quietly powerful.

Singing as a regulator of stress

Choir singing doesn’t just add “feel-good” chemicals, it also reduces stress.

Multiple studies show reductions in cortisol (the stress hormone) after group singing, alongside increased feelings of calm and connection, and crucially, it does this without needing words. In other words, singing helps shift the body:

• from threat → safety

• from contraction → expansion

• from overwhelm → integration

Collective effervescence: when we become more than ourselves

There is a phrase from sociology that captures something almost impossible to describe: collective effervescence.

It refers to that moment when a group of people, engaged in a shared emotional experience, begins to feel like a single living thing: energised, connected, lifted beyond the individual. You feel it in choirs: the swell of sound; the shared breath before an entry; the moment a chord locks in and something in your chest opens.

Research into live music experiences suggests this sense of unity and shared emotional intensity can create lasting increases in wellbeing, precisely because of this collective experience of connection.

In those moments, grief doesn’t disappear, but it is held in something larger.

Finding voice when words are gone

One of the most profound things about singing is that it allows expression without explanation.

Emerging research into trauma and group singing suggests that people can begin to “re-find” themselves through voice, even before they can articulate what they feel. There is something deeply human about this:

• to be heard without speaking

• to belong without explaining

• to feel without needing to make sense of it

Why this matters

We often think of healing as something we do alone, but choir singing reminds us that healing can also be:

• rhythmic

• relational

• embodied

• shared

It is breath by breath. Note by note. Week by week...not fixing. not forcing, just returning.

A final note

For me, choir singing is not a performance, it is a practice of coming back:

• back into my body

• back into connection

• back into life

And perhaps that is why it feels like medicine. Not because it removes grief, but because it helps me carry it, in harmony with others.

That is why I sponsor the ChoirBLAST festival, and all their activities they work towards.