Is it Safe to Sing? Hack Your Brain and Sing with Ease!
02/01/2025
Your brain does not really care if youâre thriving or just surviving. The top-priority of your mind is safety. This means that when your brain perceives a threat to safety, singing can become more difficult.
- For instance, if your brain detects instability in your body, like weak core muscles or limited neck mobility, it may limit your breathing or vocal efficiency as a protective response.
- Similarly, mental or emotional stress can amplify your brain’s sense of threat, further impacting fine motor control needed for singing.
Over time, your brainâs ongoing “threat detection” can result in unfavorable outputs that make singing feel more effortful. These outputs are desperate attempts of your brain to keep you safe by slowing things down:
- Compensatory tension or weakness in your muscles
- Fatigue, dizziness or nausea
- Stiffness or pain
- Anxiety
But I have good news! By addressing these “threat signals” through tailored exercises and movement-based strategies, you can recalibrate your nervous system, creating a sense of safety and enabling freer, more confident singing.
In the webinar Is It Safe to Sing? Brain-Based Exercises for More Ease, Stability, and Efficiency in Your Voice by Bjorn Poels, Z-Health certified Performance Trainer, on February 26th, you are going to hack your brain with proprioceptive, vestibular, and visual exercises; and experience the effect immediately on your singing. Don’t miss the 
 EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT !
Read this blog post to understand why you need to make your brain feel safe to enable your best singing.
Hypermobility
Singers with hypermobility often face unique challenges because their joints are naturally more flexible and the collagen structure of their deep connective tissue (fascia) is not as organized. This can make the brain feel unsafe and trigger protective responses.
If youâre hypermobile, your brain perceives instability in key areas like the spine, pelvis, core, ribcage and neck, regions critical for posture and breath management in singing. This instability might cause your brain to limit your vocal power, range, or flexibility as a safeguard against potential injury. You might also experience talkativeness, hypervigilence or even anxiety, as your brain is constantly scanning the world for threats. This means that helping your brain feel safe with the targeted exercises from the webinar can be hugely beneficial for tackling performance anxiety.
I often recommend Pilates and Yoga to the singers I work with. Their impact goes beyond just âstrengthening and stretchingâ! However, if youâre hypermobile, make sure that you work with a teacher or trainer who understands how your body and brain work, so they can tailor the exercises to your needs.
If you want to understand hypermobility and how it can affect singers in depth, make sure to read the blog post Hypermobile Singers: From Pretty Impressive to Pretty Painful! And maybe send it to the teachers, trainers and therapists you work with too đ
Proprioception: How Your Balance and Vision Impact Your Voice
Proprioceptive awareness is your brainâs ability to perceive and interpret the position, movement, and orientation of your body in space, which helps you to control the fine motor movements needed for singing. Even though this is a typical issue for hypermobile people, proprioception can be challenging for everybody.
If you experience reduced proprioceptive feedback, it is harder for your brain to accurately interpret your body position and movement. This can lead to compensatory tension in your neck, jaw and core, negatively impacting your breath management and vocal quality. Vision can be surprisingly impactful for singers, as it is closely linked to the brain’s sense of balance, body awareness, and overall nervous system function. It has a profound effect on how you can move
- Strengthening your vestibular system improves your postural alignment, stability and balance.
- Eye exercises enhance your coordination and spatial orientation.
These exercises that you’ll experience during the webinar ensure that your brain receives clearer, more reliable sensory input, leading to better body awareness and reduced compensatory tension. They can also help prevent injuries, improve stage presence, and boost overall confidence by creating a strong foundation for movement and singing.
Again… The Tongue!
If youâve been following my blog posts and webinars of the past years, you know that Iâm obsessed by the tongue… And rightfully so! Your tongue and jaw are often deeply connected to your brain’s perception of safety and control. They are critical for so many processes in efficient singing; while at the same time also being prone to tension when your nervous system feels unsafe. For instance, unbalanced jaw movement or a weak tongue might signal instability to the brain, leading to compensatory tension and / or restricted movement.
Through exercises that improve mobility, strength, and proprioception in these regions, you can enhance your brain-body connection. For example, tongue mobility drills or controlled jaw opening and closing exercises can help refine motor control, reduce tension, and build a sense of stability in the craniofacial region. These movements also increase neural input to your brain, reinforcing a sense of safety and allowing your tongue and jaw to function more freely and efficiently during singing.
Check out the 3 webinars in The singsing! Sofa Library that focus on your tongue and jaw!
Are You Ready To Hack Your Brain?
In the webinar Is It Safe to Sing? Brain-Based Exercises for More Ease, Stability, and Efficiency in Your Voice by Bjorn Poels, Z-Health certified Performance Trainer, on February 26th, you are going to hack your brain with proprioceptive, vestibular, and visual exercises; and experience the effect immediately on your singing.
The practical exercises will tackle what I have explained throughout this blog post and help you understand how to make your brain feel safe and enable your best singing. Don’t miss the  EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT and Enroll now!
RESOURCES
- Z-Health, a brain-based approach to movement and rehabilitation developed by Dr. Cobb. Z-Health focuses on integrating neuroscience, proprioception, and motor control to improve physical performance and address issues like balance, stability, and tension.
- Celest Pereira:
Webinar: Flexible Thinking – Understanding Hypermobility and Neuroanatomy
Book: Too flexible to feel good
- Celest Pereira:
- Working with Singers with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders, Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome – Poster Presentation at Pan-European Voice Conference 2025 in Santander by Joanne Bozeman, BM
- Research shows how hypermobility can negatively impact singing ability – Research Paper by Tracy Jeffrey (2022)
- Exploring Hypermobility and Its Impact on the Voice: Christine Schneider interviews Alien Partljic for The Visceral Voice podcast
- Impact of hypermobility on the voice – Research paper by Alien PartljiÄ (2024)
- Het syndroom van Ehlers-Danlos (EDS) – Article from Gezondheid.be
As always, feel free to send me your thoughts, questions, and feedback in the comments below this blog, via the contact form or in the singsing! online community 
Cordially,
Sarah