What is Singing Therapy?
During a Singing Therapy session you will be asked to follow a series of exercises for both body and voice that will help you breathe more efficiently, helping to calm a number of stress and anxiety based problems and disorders whilst having fun!
Singing Therapy will open and develop your voice helping you to overcome problems on a physical and psychological nature alongside finding your own natural sound.
One of the ideas behind Singing Therapy is to help you find your natural self without fear of how others see you. We want to work on making you feel confident in expressing yourself; how you look, how you sound and how you feel! This will allow you to get in touch with who you really are and what you want your life to be about. Another concept of Singing Therapy can simply help you target a specific physical area of concern.
After an initial consultation to determine your needs and goals you will be given physical and vocal exercises to do. The idea of these exercises that can often seem quite strange and childlike (even stupid at times!) is to unwind old physical and mental patterns in the body that might be causing problems. Instead of telling somebody “not” to do something, they are given an exercise that helps them to achieve the “not doing”. Sometimes patterns are so ingrained within us, we cannot simply just stop. We have to divert our attention and “do” something different.
”Modern” medicine is now beginning to discover the benefits of singing to ease stress and aid relaxation as it provides a workout for muscles in the pelvis, stomach, chest, neck and so on. It encourages deep breathing, increased circulation and a “feel good” vibe in the body, due to endorphins released into the blood, and it doesn’t stop there. Research shows that singing can help stroke patients and people with speech problems to articulate and speak again. Often when someone has a stroke they damage the left side of the brain, responsible for speech. However singing uses the right side of the brain and this can help the person communicate again by reactivating vocal muscles. If a person can’t say it, they can sing it! (Also known as Melodic Intonation Therapy)
Alexandra has worked with people with speech problems such as stuttering, stroke patients relearning to speak, special needs children and those with muscular disorders such as Dystonia. Many of her clients just find pleasure in using their voice, seeking ways to ease stress and loosen up after a long day.
A session will involve working a series of simple exercises to learn how to use breathing to calm and align the body for renewed health and greater confidence with voice production. Other techniques used may include, meditation, visualization, sound healing and for those that want to lots of singing and making noise!
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