Newsweek reports that Office Workers Who Sing Together Are Healthier:
“Making music together stimulates one’s creativity and helps one’s self-confidence,” notes Mark Ford, director of knowledge management at Clifford Chance, a global law firm, which offers staff singing and piano lessons. “When you work long hours, it helps tremendously to take a break like this. You walk back to your desk refreshed.” “Anybody can participate,” says David Smith, business development director at the London law firm Outer Temple Chambers and founder of the law-firm choir competition Legal Harmony. “Whether you’re a receptionist or a CEO, if you can get away from work for 45 minutes and make music, that time is invaluable.”According to research by Töres Theorell, professor emeritus of psychosocial medicine at Stockholm University and one of the world’s leading authorities on music and well-being, workplace singing in particular makes employees healthier, too. “Learning how to sing is a physical matter,” he explains. “It has a positive effect on the heart, and one’s lung capacity improves if one learns deep breathing [as practised by singers]. Deep breathing is useful even when one isn’t singing.” Singing, reports Thorell in Psychological Health Effects of Musical Experiences, published by Springer earlier this year, even has a positive impact on the hormones that help wounds heal faster.
Full story: Office Workers Who Sing Together Are Healthier.