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John Newton, powerfully inspired by the remorse he felt participating in the Atlantic slave trade as an ordained minister and captaining a slave ship, not only expressed his experience of God’s grace and mercy by penning the lyrics to ‘Amazing Grace,’ he actually, it is now recognized, has been healing hearts ever since.

We all seem to feel better after we sing (except for those who might hear me sing), but researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin chose to study the effect a bit more seriously. They recruited 65 seniors—both men and women— and requested they each sing four songs while being assisted by a singing coach. As each volunteer trilled out tunes, researchers looked for and measured changes in their blood flow.

Without blinding you with science, here’s the deal: Knowing the rate at which blood circulates throughout your body is very helpful in determining the health of the major blood vessels that supply that oxygen-rich feast to your heart. And according to the medical journal MedRxiv, while some improvement in this ‘endothelial function’ was seen belting out ‘Hey Jude,’ 22% of the volunteers saw significant improvement when they sang ‘Amazing Grace’ for 10 minutes.

Scientists remarked that both the physical and emotional effort involved in singing the hymn for several minutes were comparable with ‘walking at a moderately brisk pace.’ In fact, according to the study, singing the hymn each day could actually help reverse heart disease.

(Now, that doesn’t mean you can freebase a rack of ribs at The Pig Pit and not have it impact your heart health by singing all the way home, but it’s still pretty impressive.)

And while I am deeply fond of ‘Amazing Grace,’ let’s be clear: the selection of songs chosen for the study was rather limited. One cannot help but wonder at the health potential of other songs.

Because if ‘Amazing Grace’ can truly mimic a ‘brisk walk’ when one undertakes its vocal gymnastics, then mercy, imagine what ‘Delilah’ can do!