“Dancing queen/Feel the beat from the tambourine/You can dance/You can jive/Having the time of your life,” "Dancing Queen", Abba.
My sister and I have been taking dance classes together since I was three and she was two. Along with the happy memories we have formed sharing the stage over the years, we have come to realize the numerous mental health benefits as a result of consistent dancing.
While the physical benefits of dance, such as increased stamina, muscle strength, balance, and coordination are well known, the mental health benefits are often overlooked. Simply bopping along to your favorite song can greatly improve brain function, and here is the scientific explanation behind this fact.
As you move your body to the beat of the music, your brain is hard at work. The mental workout individuals receive from dancing improves brain functions. For example, learning dance steps enhances cognitive skills, such as muscle memory and concentration.
“Dancing is so great because there are all the little details, and the little movements, and the little muscles that are working without you even realizing,” said dancer Julianne Hough.
Simply marking dance steps forces your brain to concentrate on multiple levels, as it involves a run-through of the all the dance steps as well as performing those dance steps correctly.
Additionally, consistent dancing reshapes the cerebellum (part of the brain that controls balance), training your brain against dizziness. Researchers have found differences in ballet dancers’ brain structures that prevent them from feeling dizzy after doing pirouettes or chaine turns.
"Dancers’ brains adapt over years of training to suppress the input that makes us feel dizzy,” said Dr. Barry Seemungal, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial. “Consequently, the signal going to the brain areas responsible for perception of dizziness in the cerebral cortex is reduced, making dancers resistant to feeling dizzy. If we can target that same brain area or monitor it in patients with chronic dizziness, we can begin to understand how to treat them better."
Along with improved cognition and preventing dizziness, dancing also speeds the brain’s processing, or ability to understand and react to new information. Researchers from the University of Illinois found that subjects who danced consistently over the course of six months had an increase in white matter (part of the brain that connects nerve cells, which helps individuals to process information quickly). This result was surprising, as white matter decreases with age. The researchers hypothesized that the white matter increased in the dancers due to the mentally demanding process of learning choreography.
The mentally stimulating process of learning to dance has also been proven to help prevent certain mental illnesses. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that consistent dancing is correlated to a 76 percent reduction in dementia risk, as learning different dance steps keeps the mind active.
Furthermore, dancing boosts an individual’s overall level of happiness. Simply dancing around in your bedroom to your favorite song causes the release of endorphins, brain chemicals that reduce stress and pain. Because of this, dancing has been found to be an especially helpful form of therapy for depression patients.
“There is a dancer in all of us,” said fitness expert Tracey Mallett. “When we move our body to the music we naturally smile and want to keep moving.”
Regardless of age or level of experience, anyone can dance. So next time you hear your favorite song playing, get out on the dance floor and dance your way to better health!
