'Tis, as Taylor Swift will tell you, the damn season. But Christmastime can boost your health, if you let it. That's according to counselling psychologist Niamh Delmar on Drivetime, who tells Katie and Colm that singing – and especially singing in a choir or a group – has lasting health benefits:
"It is absolutely powerful. There’s an extensive wealth of physiological and psychological benefits when we sing – especially if we're singing in a group."
When we come together as a group and start singing our hearts out, the health benefits are physical as well as mental:
"The physiological benefits will be lower blood pressure, it helps with the heart, the breathwork, all of that, lung function. The psychological factor, then, it’s an emotional experience.
"And it is a physical activity, you know, people have that shared activity that they’re doing together, so it really creates that social cohesion, and it’s a bonding experience. And as human beings, you know, we gravitate towards that, so that can really help people to divert against loneliness or anything like that."
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