After suffering from asthma for years, Isabel Heredia, 75, finally found her perfect breathing pace. “I feel so much better,” she said. Heredia has spent the last six months singing in a choir at Mission Neighborhood Center (MNC).
MNC is one of the 12 groups in Community of Voices/ Comunidad de Voces, a clinical trial led by University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in partnership with The San Francisco Community Center (SFCMC). The program is attempting to prove the scientific health benefits of singing
for senior citizens.
Twelve different senior choirs around San Francisco will be participating in the five-year study. Two of them are in the Mission District: a group at the Mission Neighborhood Center, that already completed the primary six months of the trial, and another one at Centro Latino de San Francisco, that just started last November.
Both groups include 15 seniors each, all of them over 60, and meet once a week for a half hour-singing practice. Most of the singers have no previous music experience, but Martha Salazar, the director of the two choirs, explains that is not a problem since they are learning from the basics. “We teach everything: how to sing, how to breathe, the correct posture. They start to feel so proud of themselves,” said Salazar.
The author of the study, the UCSF’s professor Dr. Julene Johnson, explained that the research is focused on measuring health and well-being before participating in the choir, and then compare this data with information gathered after they have participated. Johnson believes the seniors might improve lower-body strength, which can be a good way to avoid common injuries among older adults. He also suggested that participating in the choir may positively affect the seniors’ cognitive perception.
Johnson also emphasizes the power of the social support and the importance of values and cultural background in the study.
“The physical part of the study is important, but we also understand that recognizing yourself as part of a group is very beneficial,” Johnson explained. “I don’t have depression, but you know that sometimes loneliness knocks on our doors,” Heredia detailed. “Since I don’t live in the Mission, the choir became my weekly escape and chance to speak and sing in Spanish.”
For the participants at the Mission’s choirs, there is nothing like the revival of their lives’ repertoire. “Having a chance to go back to all those songs that I heard my mom singing at home, still there in Cuba, is a blessing,” Heredia said.
During the weekly rehearsal, the therapeutic effect is especially well sung in the lyrics of “Cielitolindo”, a popular Mexican song that invites everyone to sing instead of cry (“Ay, Ay, Ay. Canta y no llores…”).
“I never doubted that singing is a very helpful way to improve health, but now we are having a chance to scientifically prove this,” Salazar stated.
With the support of a $ 1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Health, Johnson’s study might reveal results that would help senior centers relying
on government funds by providing substantial evidence that there are cost-effective programs that could better serve their communities.