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For the Love of Dance

August 22, 2018



 

I started this day wanting to share some information about dance, my forever love and what I love to do everyday. It is, after all, the most innate connection within body and soul available within all of us.   It’s hard to hear a melody you like and not move to its rhythm. In the process of gathering my thoughts,  I ran into this article and thought, well, maybe I don’t need to recreate the wheel.   So instead of trying to express my passion for dance in a few paragraphs, a task that I still have learn to express concisely, I’m sharing a great article I ran into.

 

 

CNN’s Robert Jimison put a great article together describing 5 benefits of dance.  

 

Since I know we all lead busy lives, I’m giving you a synopsis of what you’ll find in the article.

 

 

First, the story or a Whitney Thore who regained control over her life and body by deciding to just dance in her living room one day. Struggling with polycystic ovarian syndrome which caused her to retain excess weight, she found a way to incorporate movement back into her life that felt good to her body. You’ll find a short the viral video that catapulted Thore into the spotlight.

 

 

And as Emily Sandow, supervisor of dance physical therapy at NYU Langone’s Harkness Center for Dance Injuries, phrases it, “the integration of the body and the soul” is key to any healthy lifestyle and at the center of dance.

 

 

So the 5 key point of the article are these:

1. All you need is yourself
Dance provides a cardiovascular workout you can do anywhere at anytime.  “Social dancing is more cardiovascular because you’re doing endurance exercise for a long period of time. But if you’re doing technical skilled dancing such as ballet, usually, you’re doing quick bursts,” Sandow said.

 

 

2. Improving memory
Aga Burzynska, assistant professor of human development at Colorado State University, wondered whether keeping them active would slow memory loss. Her study study was published 2017 in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. At the end of the study, brain scans were done on all participants and compared with scans taken before the activities began. The dancers fared better and had less deterioration in their brains than the other groups.

 

 

3. Mental escape
A 2014 study found positive changes in mood for recreational dancers. Participants had higher energy levels and were less tense compared with competition dancers, who had stress levels similar to those of other competitive athletes.
A 2011 studyfound that dancing as we age helps improve cognitive flexibility, known to decline even in high-functioning older adults.

 

 

4. Balance and coordination
Techniques taught in dance classes increase body awareness and encourage low-impact landings. These techniques, Sandow says, are not only useful for dancers on stage but for athletes who play impact sports, children developing motor skills and older adults concerned about injuries.

 

 

5. Dancing has no age limit
“We know that movement is good for everyone,” Sandow said. “A healthy lifestyle is integrating the mind, body and soul relationship, and dance has all of those characteristics.”  Dancing forces you to feel your muscles, bones and joints, “and getting in touch with your body in that way is the first step to any kind of physical fitness.”

“Everyone can do something, even if it’s just you just tapping your foot,” she said. “Everyone can do something where they can move their body to music, and that’s really valuable.”

 

This article hits some amazing points on what I love about dance today. The hardest part is making the time but boy when you do, you feel amazing. When you’re ready, and even if you’re not, check out the local events by KB Fitness, dance classes in your residential lobby.

Erica Maya
In2DanceApp.com

The Author


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