Carers Create: Music4Wellbeing
Carers Create: Music4Wellbeing offers creative projects that positively influence Carers’ wellbeing.
All welcome to fun singing for wellbeing session with tea and bickies.
- Boost your brain-body connection,
- Exercise your laughter muscles,
- Expand your social life and enjoy a cuppa!
Most present or past Carers caring long-term for their loved-ones probably agree that finding one quick-fix activity to alleviate the pressures and challenges is highly unlikely. Research has, however, shown a scientific basis for some activities positively impacting aspects of wellbeing generally, and for Carers in particular.
Over the last ten years, the number of singing- and dancing-for-wellbeing groups has grown enormously. Something about singing and dancing in groups is inspiring more and more of us to get involved. For over two decades, international teams of researchers have sought to better understand what drives this upsurge. What they found is that the human compulsion to sing, listen or move to music together goes deeper than being merely a pleasant recreation. Here are some of the findings on group singing:
- facilitates an amazing brain gym involving many different areas of the brain at once,
- can regulate our heart and breathing rates and body temperature by stimulating the body’s nervous system,
- facilitates new learning by laying down new neural pathways,
- creates a good social feeling by stimulating the hormone oxytocin,
- stimulates a particular immunoglobulin that helps the immune system fight off infection,
- can engender better sleep patterns by stimulating the hormone melatonin,
- can regulate our emotions by stimulating the hormones dopamine, cortisol and serotonin.
Director of Music4Wellbeing, Dr Trish Vella-Burrows, has been part of a research team since the late 1990s and these findings inspired her to design activities that Carers could share with their cared-for on a regular basis. An external study of the Music4Wellbeing project, Carers Create, reported that, for Carers, sharing regular, professionally-led group musical activities with their cared-for:
- positively influenced the relationship with the person they cared for,
- restored elements of previously strong relationships
- temporarily relieved the day-to-day pressures of caring,
- enabled peer support from people experiencing similar situations.
Some Carers built on their experiences in the group to use certain techniques at home, such as singing as a distraction, listening to favoured music as a relaxation tool, or to help manage care in other ways.
Today, Music4Wellbeing provides 12 regular activity groups in Kent. All welcome Carers and their cared-for. Most are free to attend.
If you’d like to find out more, pop along to one of our sessions, details of which can be found on our website www.music4wellbeing.org.uk or Email: welcome@music4wellbeing.org.uk or call 01304 699007.