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When you make sound, such as chanting or singing, you create internal vibrations which affect your physical and emotional states.
Science shows that singing releases endorphins, your brain’s feel-good chemicals, and stimulates the production of the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin enhances feelings of trust and bonding and has been shown help alleviate stress and anxiety. Group singing, in particular, has been found to lessen depression and loneliness.
The article Singing Changes Your Brain explains:
The benefits of singing regularly seem to be cumulative. In one study, singers were found to have lower levels of cortisol, indicating lower stress. A very preliminary investigation suggesting that our heart rates may sync up during group singing could also explain why singing together sometimes feels like a guided group meditation. Study after study has found that singing relieves anxiety and contributes to quality of life.
Chanting a mantra, repeated sounds, words, or phrases which may or may not have literal meaning, such as “om or aum” has benefits for your brain and body as well. As a type of meditative practice, chanting would induce the positive neurological and psychological effects of meditation, ranging from improved concentration and attention, reduced anxiety and depression, to a younger-looking brain with increased volume
The article, Your Brain on Om: The Science of Mantra further explains it like this:
Mantra is a Sanskrit word for ‘sound tool,’ and Om is one of myriad such mantras. Sanskrit and some other ancient languages such as Tibetan, prototypical Egyptian and ancient Hebrew evolved as complex systems of onomatopoeia, where the sounds evoke movements of energy. This evocation is qualitative and subjective and is linked with interoception (inner body sensations) and emotional sense of self, both predominantly represented in the right hemisphere of the brain. Conversely, the narrative strand of sounds in which we give them meaning is done predominantly through the left hemisphere. What is fascinating about mantras is that from a physics standpoint, the sounds themselves, before they are assigned meaning, will resonate in different parts of the body and mind, creating actual interactions or events.”
