Music and Singing During Perimenopause: Surprising Benefits for Symptoms and Mood
How music and singing help with perimenopause symptoms. Evidence on mood, anxiety, sleep, and brain health. Tips for getting involved whether or not you can sing.
The Power of Music in Perimenopause
Music is one of the most potent and underappreciated tools available to women managing perimenopause. Its effects on the brain and nervous system are measurable, rapid, and broad-ranging. Listening to music you love activates the brain's reward circuitry, releasing dopamine and generating the same kind of anticipatory pleasure response as food or social connection. Making music, and singing in particular, goes considerably further, engaging breathing regulation, social bonding circuits, focused attention, and emotional expression simultaneously. None of this requires formal training or a particular level of talent. The benefits of musical engagement are not exclusive to musicians. They are accessible to anyone willing to engage.
Singing and the Nervous System
Singing activates the vagus nerve, the primary nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system, which governs the rest-and-digest state that counteracts stress. When you sing, particularly with sustained exhalation on notes, you are directly stimulating the vagal tone that brings your nervous system out of the sympathetic (stress) response and into a calmer state. This is particularly relevant during perimenopause, when the autonomic nervous system is already under hormonal pressure and hot flashes, palpitations, and anxiety reflect a nervous system that is frequently over-reactive. Group singing, such as in a choir, amplifies this effect through the additional mechanism of social bonding and synchronised breathing with others.
Effects on Anxiety and Mood
Research on choir participation and group singing consistently finds significant reductions in anxiety and improvements in mood among participants, including those who initially describe themselves as non-singers. A study by Oxford University found that people who joined a choir experienced faster social bonding and greater improvements in wellbeing than those who joined other social groups, suggesting that singing together generates unusually powerful connective effects. For perimenopausal women managing anxiety, low mood, or a general emotional flatness, joining a choir or singing group provides a trifecta of benefits: vagal activation, social connection, and regular engagement with something joyful. Even singing alone, in the car or at home, reliably shifts emotional state when done deliberately.
Music, Sleep, and Hot Flashes
Music has documented effects on sleep quality when used intentionally before bed. Slow tempo music, around sixty beats per minute, synchronises with resting heart rate and helps the body shift into a pre-sleep state. Listening to calming music for thirty to forty-five minutes before sleep is associated with improved sleep onset and fewer night waking events in women with insomnia. For women whose sleep is disrupted by night sweats or racing thoughts, incorporating music into a pre-sleep routine is a low-effort, evidence-based intervention. Some research also suggests that regular musical engagement reduces the frequency of hot flashes through its effects on sympathetic nervous system regulation, though this area needs more dedicated study in perimenopausal populations.
Cognitive Protection Through Musical Engagement
Learning or maintaining a musical instrument is one of the most cognitively demanding activities available to the adult brain. It engages motor control, auditory processing, memory, reading (if using notation), timing, and emotional expression simultaneously, and it requires the kind of sustained, novel learning that builds cognitive reserve. For women concerned about perimenopause-related brain fog and the longer-term risk of cognitive decline, musical engagement is a particularly rich form of brain training. Even amateur musicianship maintained across the adult lifespan is associated with preserved cognitive function in later decades. Starting or returning to an instrument during perimenopause is a genuinely meaningful investment in brain health.
Joining a Choir: What to Expect
Many women assume that choirs require an audition, a high standard of singing, or the ability to read music. The majority of community choirs require none of these things. Community choirs, rock and pop choirs, and therapeutic singing groups are explicitly welcoming to people of all abilities, including those who describe themselves as unable to sing. Organisations like Natural Voice Network in the UK run choirs based entirely on learning by ear, with no expectation of prior musical knowledge. Many NHS trusts and mental health services now refer people to singing groups as part of social prescribing. Searching for a local choir through local Facebook groups, community notice boards, or the Making Music organisation will typically surface several options within a short distance.
Music as a Daily Perimenopause Tool
Beyond structured singing or instrumental practice, music can be woven into daily life in ways that actively support perimenopause symptom management. Creating playlists for different purposes, one that lifts mood in the morning, one that calms anxiety in the afternoon, and one that supports sleep in the evening, takes thirty minutes to set up and provides ongoing benefit with no further effort. Using music deliberately during difficult symptom periods, such as listening to something absorbing during a hot flash or playing uplifting music before a social event when anxiety is high, provides reliable and immediate relief in a way that few other non-pharmacological interventions can. Music is always available, costs nothing, and carries no side effects. It deserves a more central place in perimenopause self-care.
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