Here’s why dancing is the best exercise to improve mental health
It’s no surprise that exercise is an integral part of our lives that allows us to keep in shape and stay healthy. However, the focus of exercise tends to be centered around physical health benefits. This often overshadows the advantages it has for our mental well-being. One activity in particular takes the crown when it comes to improving mental health — dancing.
In a study conducted at the University of Sydney, researchers found that when compared to any other type of exercise, dance was far more effective and beneficial for psychological and cognitive actions. The full report was published in the journal, Sports Medicine.
Here’s everything you need to know about the impacts of dancing.
What makes dance distinctive?
A major quality of dance is its accessibility. While it’s known that exercise releases endorphins, more commonly known as “happy hormones”, dancing makes the process to obtain those hormones much simpler. These brain chemicals are largely responsible for improving mood, reducing stress, and enhancing brain clarity. This is one of the key aspects researchers emphasized while listing out the reasons behind the success of dancing.
Adding onto this theme, not only is dance easier to perform than many other types of exercises, it also rarely requires extra equipment. This makes it an inviting and budget-friendly physical activity. Additionally, dance is often performed in group settings, in which the social interactions among different individuals add to the positivity of the experience.
From a cognitive perspective, researchers also explained how the coordination needed to complete dance routines engages your brain in multiple ways. For example, when remembering and recalling dance steps and then synchronizing them with the music while performing.
One point to note is that the genre or style of dance does not matter either. For instance, in one example from the study, researchers witnessed how Zumba (a type of dance) offered more promising improvements in working memory when compared to treadmill activity. In fact, even when multiple choreographed dance styles (like salsa, rock, and rumba) were mixed, they still observed a positive impact on verbal memory recognition.
What the experts say
Dr Kirin Hilliar is an Australian psychologist based in UAE where she is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Heriot-Watt University Dubai, and a CDA-licensed Psychologist at OpenMinds Psychiatry. She provides more insight on the influence of dance on our well-being.
The first underlying key matter is the relationship between physical activity and mental health, where improvements in one group are almost always accompanied by improvements in the other, according to Dr. Hilliar.
“The key factor is that physical activity has been shown to directly benefit mental health, both in the short-term (such as reducing acute stress, and improving mood and sleep quality) and the long-term (decreasing symptoms of depression and anxiety, and increasing self-esteem),” she said.
Back to the question of dance and its distinct capabilities, one factor she emphasizes is the awareness it provides. “Given dancing requires good focus in order to perform the moves properly, it can provide an opportunity for people to use their mind and body in a new way compared to their other daily activities,” she said, explaining how such dedicated focus has also been proven beneficial for our mental health. As an avid dancer herself, Dr. Hilliar too enjoys the mental break dancing provides, sharing how it allows her to handle day-to-day problems from a fresh perspective.
Benefits discussed in the study were also reiterated by Dr. Hilliar, where she summarized how, “dance uniquely integrates the benefits of physical activity, listening to music, mindfulness and – if you want – socializing and engaging in a shared experience.”
While the specific study discussed here is just one example of researching the effects of dance, there are indubitably some gaps in this research. Dr. Hilliar said, “It would be really exciting to have future research focus on more traditional forms of dance amongst different cultural groups,” citing how many traditional studies feature dance styles like hip-hop and ballroom dancing simply because of their popularity. She also stated her interest in the research of dance in unstructured environments, such as dancing with your children.
On a final note, Dr. Hilliar highly recommends incorporating dance into our daily routines. “Dance has also been shown to benefit cognitive health, increasing attention and memory, and also slowing or stopping age-related cognitive decline. So you are not just exercising your body, you’re exercising your brain, too!” she said.
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