Why and How Can Dance Reduce Stress?

This article will discuss how and why dance can reduce stress.

What is dance?

Dance can be classified in a multitude of ways, including ballroom, country, jazz, tap, hip-hop, ballet, musical theatre, contemporary, and many other styles. These different types of dance allow us to explore new skills, abilities and cultures while we are in the moment.

A great dancer is a graceful and elegant one who can tell stories with their movements, including symbolic messages, humor, and meaningful messages, in their dance. Each dance style represents a different emotion or purpose that a person is pursuing.

Why dance?

There are many reasons that people choose to take a dance class. The excitement, of course, is one of them.

Whether you have taken a class before or are first-time students, the excitement of the beginning is unmatched. The atmosphere is usually much more positive and welcoming than other forms of exercise or physical activity, which provides an incentive to work hard in the classes and carry that success into your personal lives.

For many, a great way to get into shape is to join a dance studio and have a ton of fun!

You'll also find many benefits of dancing in your life outside of the studio, including the benefits mentioned previously. They include self-confidence, increased energy, improved sleep, improved cardiovascular health, and even better self-esteem.

These positive and long-lasting effects of dance can't be beat.

Sitting down all day increases your risk of heart disease and stroke, and many other chronic diseases. The average American sits for more than six hours each day. This amount of time is the equivalent of 22 years in a lifetime.

Switching up your daily routine, even for a small amount of time, can be the catalyst you need to set you on the path to a healthier life. This is especially true if you are sitting down most of the day.

Although you may not be able to make the switch to a dance studio for a long period of time, you can take a few minutes at the end of the day to try dancing in your living room, in your car or even at work, for example.

Why not today?

A survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics revealed that approximately two-thirds of U.S. adults say they take regular exercise at least three times a week. Although this is a substantial amount, most do not go beyond this.

Some people feel that they can't commit to a workout when they're busy, or that they simply don't have time to exercise. However, that doesn't mean you have to wait until you have all the time in the world to start your exercise program.

You don't have to spend all of your time doing "everything in moderation" (a key component of a healthy lifestyle) to stay healthy. Some people are doing just that, and they could be healthier by not giving themselves enough time to exercise.

Why not today? It's not an overused phrase, but, believe it or not, the days are getting shorter, and your body needs exercise. "Breaking up" with sitting and becoming more active by taking some classes or joining a friend or family member for a workout session is much more beneficial than letting the opportunity slip by.

Research on Dance and Yoga:

A study was found by University of Hawaii researchers, and involved 78 college students, ages 18 to 25, who were asked to identify a stressor and a source of stress, with the aim of increasing their emotional control and ability to manage stress. Subjects were randomly assigned to two groups, with half receiving a series of dance classes and the other half given an aerobic class.

Both groups attended two 45-minute classes three times a week for 12 weeks, as well as 90 minutes of yoga twice a week for four weeks.

At the end of the 12 weeks, the dance group showed a significant improvement in their emotional control, while the aerobic group did not. Researchers explained that this is because the dance class required a lot of focus and concentration while the aerobic class did not.

While the dance class was well received by the participants, they found that the yoga class was even more popular, suggesting that in fact it works as an emotional outlet.

“We were surprised to see how popular yoga was,” said the study’s co-author, Michael Nelson, a research assistant professor at the University of Hawaii’s department of psychology and the study’s lead author. “The people who participated in the yoga class continued to do it and told us that they did not feel as stressed during their classes.”

However, in the follow-up study, the researchers made an important adjustment by adding an additional week of yoga instruction and also reduced the length of the yoga classes to 25 minutes.

They found that participants in this study took longer to relax and de-stress after the classes, which is consistent with previous research showing that group-based interventions such as yoga, positive psychology and others work better than single sessions.

The Benefits of Dance on Healthy Aging:

Not only can dancing reduce stress, it may also help to improve brain health and lower the risk of dementia. The dance classes received by the participants in this study improved their self-reported memory, attention, executive function and self-control.

In addition, other recent research has shown that dancing can also help people live longer. Researchers from Sweden discovered that older adults who did not use their brains as much as they used to lived about two years longer than the control group.

Researchers explained that increased cognitive activity was tied to a lower risk of heart disease, as well as the most common cause of death: cardiovascular disease.

The study was titled “Dancing reduces the risk of dementia and improves cognitive function.” It was conducted by researchers from Uppsala University, including Maria Eriksson, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the department of geriatrics at Uppsala

University Hospital in Sweden and postdoctoral researchers Pär Öberg and Sören Johannesson. The study included 215 healthy people age 65 or older.

They were assessed before the study and after a three-month training period. In addition to a physical test, the participants completed a series of cognitive tests, including tests of visual memory, attention, executive function and behavioral inhibition.

The results showed that the older participants improved on the testing compared to those in the control group, which made sense because the researchers said they had just started dancing.

Dance today!