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May Cause Joy: The Full-Spectrum Health Benefits of Dance
When musician David Byrne, the founder of Reasons to be Cheerful, performed at the sold-out Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles last fall, the entire crowd was on its feet for almost the entire show. I danced enthusiastically for nearly two hours straight, feeling a kind of unfiltered joy that’s rare to access in everyday life.
The experience reminded me that I used to love dance but somehow lost the habit. The following month I signed up for “Groove Therapy” with a local dance teacher, Leah Lynn. The youngest in our group is 16, the oldest over 70. Every Saturday, we play out a verb each of us brings to class — release, gather, resist, invite — translating abstract intentions into motion. It sounds faintly ridiculous. It is also, disarmingly, effective. Within minutes, something shifts. Stress loosens. Then for the next hour, we learn hip hop shuffles and swing our hips to Kool & the Gang or Beyoncé. I always return home exhausted and exhilarated.
The dance classes provoked such a profound shift in my mood as well as my body that I decided to find out if there was more to it.
Science is now backing the many health benefits of dance. Credit: Eddie Marritz / Dance for PD
Modern research is now catching up to the fact that dance is medicine, a deeply effective intervention for physical, cognitive and emotional health. Behind the feel-good performance lies hard science. On a purely physical level, dance improves cardiovascular fitness, strength and coordination. In a longitudinal study, seniors who took part in regular dance training fell less often and were “physically better off and mentally fitter” than those in the control group.
Though the body benefits are impressive, the neurological ones are what make scientists lean forward. Dancing activates a wide network: auditory pathways, visual and motor cortex, the amygdala and, above all, the somatosensory cortex and networks that keep track of where your body is in space. Each change in rhythm or melody is processed in milliseconds and translated into new steps, adjustments and expressions, a form of real-time “multitasking” that pushes the brain harder than many other sports.
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Nobody understands this better than the dozen people who gather for David Leventhal’s class at a dance studio in Brooklyn. Though it’s cold outside, Leventhal is conjuring a beach. “Visualize what that warmth feels like,” he says, brushing his hands over his arms as if applying sunscreen. “Can we take those waves in different directions, just like they do in the ocean?” Around him, a dozen bodies begin to ripple to the tune of the pianist in the room. Arms slice, float and curl through the air. For a moment, the bare white room is less clinic than coastline.
The post May Cause Joy: The Full-Spectrum Health Benefits of Dance appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
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