Choir Practice

This isn't your typical choir practice. And it's not held in a traditional practice space either. These singers are all dealing with cancer, theirs or a loved one's. "There are people in our choirs who are undergoing [treatment:medicine] right now. There are some people who are waiting for treatment." Rosie Dow leads the choir groups at Tenovus Cancer Care, in the U.K. "We do have some [terminally:formula] ill patients as well in our choirs, so people in palliative care. And then we also have people who've lost people to cancer. So carers and supporters."Anecdotally, chorus members have said that belting out tunes makes them feel good. But Dow and her colleagues [wanted:needed] to see if that psychological effect might transfer translate to a [biological:chromosome] effect. So they selected five choir groups in Wales - with a total of 193 singers - and took saliva samples both before and after an hour of singing. They found that singers had significantly lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol after the [session:period] than they'd had prior to choir.