Singing synchs hearts

Karaoke has its terrors; it somehow convinces middle-aged office workers that they have the vocal skills of Frank Sinatra and the pelvic moves of Elvis. There are however undeniable pleasures in shared song and a new study has shown that those pleasures even extend to your heart.

To discover this, researchers had a group of 18-year-old females and males perform a series of three singing tasks. First they had them hum a single tone and breathe as needed. In a second exercise, the subjects sang a hymn and again breathed when they needed. Finally, the subjects were asked to sing a slow mantra and breathe only between phrases.

While the teens were doing this the researchers measured their heart rhythms. Under normal conditions the human heart has variability to its beat. It accelerates and decelerates in a fluctuating way known as heart rate variability (HRV).

What the researchers found though, was that in response to singing together the heart rates of the subjects became synchronised so that they accelerated and decelerated at exactly the same time.

This happens because singing requires a regulated and slower than normal rate of breathing. So singing with others causes a harmonisation of heart and breathing patterns similar to what is achieved by yoga and has similar soothing emotional effects.

The researchers observed what we already know, that 80 per cent of the neural traffic between the heart and the brain travels in the direction from the heart upwards to the brain. So the researchers now want to study whether the synchronisation in heart rate might translate into synchronisation in how people perceive the world.

Nobody wants their heart to sink but if your heart can synch, and maybe your mind as well, now that is a good thing.