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This last weekend, I hosted a dance class as a fundraiser for Pink Lemonade Project. We all had such a blast! It was a great reminder of the numerous benefits of dancing. Multiple studies have shown that dancing is one of the best activities to promote overall health and longevity. Dance your way to health & fitness.
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“You don’t get old and stop dancing. You stop dancing and get old!” Here’s Why:
Heart Health
Dance is an aerobic exercise and benefits your heart and lungs. Getting your heart pumping and blood flowing with dancing will improve your cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory fitness. When I’m dancing, my heart rate is similar to when I’m jogging, and it’s a lot more fun!
Agility and Coordination
Agility and CoordinationMoving side to side, forwards and backwards, spinning and turning and trying to keep up with all the dance movements will improve your agility, kinesthetic awareness, motor skills, balance and coordination. Improving your spatial awareness through dance will decrease your risk of falling, improve your functional fitness and your ability to perform daily tasks.
Weight Loss
Dancing can easily burn up to 600 calories in an hour and can be an effective approach to weight loss and weight management.
Muscle Tone
Dancing works your entire body and can provide full-body muscle conditioning and tone. Check out the physiques of dancers and you will clearly see the benefits of dance for body composition and muscle development.
Low Impact
Many forms of dance are low to mid-impact and/or can be easily modified, therefore providing exercise without a lot of force and impact on joints.
Brain Health
During dance, you are forced to think and memorize the choreography and that promotes cognitive function and stimulates the brain. This type of movement that causes you to use your brain and body simultaneously can help reduce the risks for dementia and Alzheimers.
Stress Relief
When you’re dancing, you must concentrate, which allows you to forget about your problems and escape the daily grind. Dance is a type of movement that forces you to focus and truly be in the moment. If your mind starts wandering, you’ll miss a step. This promotes a complete opportunity to disengage from everything except the pure joy of dance.
Fun
Most people don’t exercise because they don’t enjoy it, but with dancing, you’re often having so much fun that you forget that you’re actually exercising! Even if you’re not that great of a dancer, when you’re going right and the instructor is going left, have a good laugh and know it’s doing wonders to boost your mood and benefit your overall health! Laughing and having fun is good for the soul and releases the happy-go-lucky endorphins and positive feelings throughout the body!
Social
Typically, you’re dancing in a group or with a partner, so you also receive the health benefits of socializing, connecting and developing friendships. This is a critical and often overlooked aspect of overall health and well-being.
Bottom line, dancing promotes your physical and mental health and helps keep you feeling young and vibrant. So, whether you are participating in an organized dance class like Jazzercize, Hip Hop or Zumba, taking a ballroom dance lesson, getting down at a wedding or event, or just grooving to your favorite playlist in your kitchen, dance can improve your general well-being. Martha Graham said it best:
“Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.”
Remember, there is no wrong way to dance; feel the music and have fun!
Yours in health & fitness,
Sherri McMillan
A Little Goes a Long Way for Weight Loss
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