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Oslo Gospel Choir/Wikipedia
UK News

Choirs can help reduce loneliness and isolation, says Oxford University

by Aaron James

By gaining the responses of participants involved in various leisure groups, it found people made much stronger friendships when singing was involved.

It's suggests that decreasing church attendance could be a reason for increasing loneliness in society, and that joining congregations, choirs, or other groups where singing is involved could reverse this.

The research was published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.

Dr Eiluned Pearce led the study, and told Premier's News Hour: "I think it's very interesting that community choirs are becoming increasingly popular at the moment, and given the current problems with loneliness and isolation it could be that people are trying to join something that makes them feel a sense of belonging - part of something bigger than themselves.

"Singing seems to break the ice when you don't know people very well, so if you sing with strangers you feel much closer to them than if you're doing something like creative writing or arts and crafts.

"It's a synchronous behaviour, so you coordinate with other people while you're singing with them in a group, and it also requires some physical exertion.

"Synchrony is known to increase people's likelihood of cooperating with each other and their likelihood of affiliating with each other, and we think that's linked to particular chemicals in the brain called endorphins."

Listen to Premier's Marcus Jones speaking to Eiluned Pearce on the News Hour:

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