Keeping mental health in tune and achieving New Year goals

Karaoke helps to bring families together and boosts mental health (photo: Shutterstock)Karaoke helps to bring families together and boosts mental health (photo: Shutterstock)
Karaoke helps to bring families together and boosts mental health (photo: Shutterstock)

Look after your mental health

Precious family time while boosting mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)Precious family time while boosting mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)
Precious family time while boosting mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)

Looking after everyone’s mental health has risen to the top of the care agenda after the toll the past two years has taken on all our lives.

The team from leading online pharmacy www.medino.com, have conducted a survey to look into people’s personal goals for the New Year.

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More than 2,300 UK-based adults aged 18 and over took part in the research, which revealed nearly half (48 per cent) of all adults in the UK hope to prioritise mental health and wellbeing in 2022.

In other research, top British music psychologist, Dr Victoria Willamson delved into the reasons why singing can trigger happy hormones and offers ten Top Tips about what parents can do to maximise their children’s chance of achieving a positive physical and mental state with music.

Taking care of children's mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)Taking care of children's mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)
Taking care of children's mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)

Parents are being urged to stay in tune with their children’s mental health – by singing karaoke with them.

Boosting a child's mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)Boosting a child's mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)
Boosting a child's mental health through singing (photo: Shutterstock)

TV Music Video App ROXi, which gives free access to stream every music video, album and sing along with more than 140,000 karaoke tracks, saw a 32 per cent uplift in user session time during the first lockdown, between April to June 2020.

For more on Roxi visit https://roxi.tv/ site

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Working with the British TV streaming service, backed by Kylie Minoque and Robbie Williams, leading music psychologist Dr Victoria Williamson said: “The isolation of social lockdown, combined with episodes of increased anxiety and reduced mood, provided an environment that left people reaching out for meaningful interactions and reassuring memories.

“An activity like karaoke offers a powerful bonding experience when enjoyed with friends and family, as singing together is one of the simplest and fastest ways to bring a group of people together.”

Chief executive of ROXi Rob Lewis, said: “We know that music is an incredibly powerful tool when it comes to lifting spirits and strengthening bonds, but when we delve deeper into the specifics of singing – seeing how much impact something as simple as karaoke can have on the wellbeing of young people is uplifting.”

Parents who sing with their children engage with them on levels that are emotional, meaningful, and cognitively stimulating, according to Dr. Williamson.

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Available on Smart TVs including Sky Q, Fire TV, Android TV and Google TVs from the likes of Sony Bravia, Panasonic, Toshiba, Philips, TCL, HiSense and others, ROXi features both traditional Karaoke and ‘Karaoke With The Stars’ with scrolling on-screen lyrics.

What parents can do to ensure their children feel good and boost their wellbeing through music:

1. Sing loud and proud. Children have no natural embarrassment when it comes to their early musical performance. Only the outside world can give them the idea that they are poor singers, and such a crux can become a lifelong limitation.

2. Explore their likes, don’t only enforce your own. Children show their preferences for certain types of melody, instrument and rhythms very early in life. So, try random playlists and new artists.

3. Run with repetition. Children singing along to Baby Shark for the 1,000th time might be a real challenge for parents, but this happens because children have a far lower boredom threshold and music is a fantastic learning tool.

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4. Music is a routine supercharger. Singing to the same melodies at certain points in the day can cue children into major transitions such as meal and rest times – reducing anxiety towards change and building a sense of confidence with their routine and the shifts in the wider world.

5. Build coordination. Singing along to music is an entire brain activity that demands constant instant messaging across the cerebral cortex.

6. Do it together. Singing in synchrony with others increases cooperative behaviour, encouraging an ‘us’ mindset with the potential to build social understanding, as well as inspire harmony within the family.

7. Let them fly solo. At various ages, children value the privacy needed to explore and understand their world and singing along to their favourite music karaoke style is a great way to build towards psychological needs, such as a sense of autonomy and competence.

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8. Explore emotions through music. Music supports mental health by allowing us to feel sad as well as happy.

9. Create internal motivation. As adults, we do things because we find them internally rewarding (ie they are joyful) or because they are externally motivated (ie by money, avoiding punishment). Music making is an internally motivating activity as it is naturally joyful, as opposed to being connected to value in the outside world.

10. Open their eyes to the world. Every human culture on earth creates music and singing is a cradle to grave activity for all human beings.

Meanwhile, research on adults showed that age has a major impact on life’s goals, with only three per cent of adults over the age of 50 years old wanting to make mental health a priority, as opposed to 88 per cent of those aged 18-24 years old.

Laying back and working on New Year goals to boost mental health (photo: Shutterstock)Laying back and working on New Year goals to boost mental health (photo: Shutterstock)
Laying back and working on New Year goals to boost mental health (photo: Shutterstock)
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Research by www.medino.com found the top health improvement goals for 2022 were:

To improve mental health and wellbeing – 48 per cent

Enjoy a more balanced diet – 39 per cent

Increase time spent on fitness and exercise – 35 per cent

Get into a better sleeping pattern – 30 per cent

Quit smoking – 24 per cent.

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