Dancing is more than just exercise—it’s a celebration of one’s culture, a form of release for our emotions, a fun pastime, and so much more. If you’re not a huge fan of conventional exercises like lifting weights or running on a treadmill, dancing is a great alternative for your health. It’ll make you feel like you’re not exercising at all since you’re having so much fun!
So, strap on those dancing shoes and come with us as we explore how awesome dancing is for your health!
1. Dancing Improves Your Cardiovascular Health
Aerobic exercises are great for improving your heart health, and dancing is one of the most fun ways to do it. It gets your heart pumping and your blood flowing, and according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, people who did moderate to high-intensity dancing were 46% less likely to develop or die from heart disease. This is significantly higher than more easygoing exercises like walking, which only upped your percentages against heart disease by 25%.
2. Dancing Strengthens Your Core
Many dance moves require a lot of twisting and turning and jumping and wiggling. This actively engages muscles all over your body, especially in your core. Your core muscles need to work extra hard to keep your body balanced.
The stronger your core muscles, the better your posture. It also helps prevent back pain since your spine is always moving, and prevents injuries as much as possible since your muscles are always at peak condition!
3. Dancing Makes You More Flexible
Speaking of muscles in peak condition, did you know that dancing makes them stretch out and become more flexible? This makes mobility so much easier. As you get older, this increased mobility will help you out a ton when you start to suffer from the aches and pains old age brings. Whether it’s reaching up the top shelf for a mug or bending down to pick something up, having muscles that are flexible and are constantly stretched out is a good thing.
4. Dancing Helps with Weight Loss
Since dancing is an amazing aerobic exercise, it can aid a lot with weight loss. The higher your heart rate, the more fat your body burns to regulate temperature and deliver much-needed oxygen around the body.
Not only that, but dancing is an amazing anaerobic exercise too! When you’re having to balance on one leg or holding a position for some time, you’re strengthening muscles all over. This leads to microtears in the muscle that then get repaired to be stronger and sturdier than before.
So, if you want to lose weight without hitting the gym, dancing around your room is a pretty good alternative.
5. Dancing is Great for Bone Health
Unlike cycling or swimming, dancing has you on your feet. Your bones are actively bearing your weight as you dance around. This strengthens your bones and maintains a healthy bone density. It might even improve your bone density if you’re jumping around and doing high-impact moves!
Bone density is very important, especially as you age. Having healthy bone density can combat conditions like osteoporosis and even reverse some of the damage caused to your bones and joints.
6. Dancing Boosts Cognitive Function
While you can totally freestyle, other dances require learning choreography, keeping in time with the beat, and remembering your place in the routine. It takes considerable brain power to dance, which you probably didn’t expect, did you?
Indeed, according to researchers, dancing keeps the brain happy and healthy. It lessens our chances of developing neurological disorders like dementia as we get older too.
An activity that somehow boosts brain power and muscle power at the same time? Dancing just keeps getting better and better!
7. Dancing Promotes Mental Health
Dancing also makes us very happy. There’s something about completing a routine, mastering a new dance move, or dancing around with your loved ones that are so enjoyable. The more we dance, the more we increase our self-esteem and decrease feelings of depression and anxiety.
8. Dancing Destresses Us
Dancing is also a great way to blow off some steam. If we’re stressed about something, we can do a high-impact routine that’ll tire us out and melt that stress away. If we’re sad about something, we can let go of our emotions by letting our muscles flow.
Scientific research backs the benefits of dance on our stress levels. According to The International Journal on the Biology of Stress, dancing lowers cortisol, the hormone that directly impacts our stress levels.
9. Dancing Connects Us with Others
One thing people take for granted when it comes to mental health is social interaction. While alone time and self-reflection are always great, spending time with others once in a while is also very important. It prevents us from feeling lonely and isolated from society.
There are many ways to socialize through dancing. You can take dance classes with other people, participate in flash mobs, do a dance that needs a partner, or compete with other dancers!
