Dancing Can Improve Overall Brain Health, According To Scientists

There are a lot of creative ways people do to make themselves feel better. Whether it’s laughing, hanging out with friends, or seeing a nice blue sky, these can be nice contributors to not only happiness, but to your brain as well.

However, one of the biggest ways to help your brain is dancing. There are so many ways and so many styles of dancing, but each one can contribute to brain activity. Dancing is considered a brain activity from the way it affects the hippocampus dopamine system, and the neurons all firing at the same time.

With the brain senses this movement, it free up the mental state, which can cause happiness and a lighter emotional expression. What makes it different from going to the gym, studying, or doing a basic crossword is that dancing promotes creativity, fluidity, and is good exercise. Dancing can improve on emotion, and can easily change a person’s mood.

“As the moves settle into my body, I shift focus to the music and allow myself to react emotionally. I haven’t taken any data, but if someone compares my mood before and after class, I’m willing to bet the results would be night and day,” Hannah Wojcik told Real Simple.

According to Real Simple, dance class can be a mental balancing act of memory, coordination, expression, and connection. It can be a way to relieve stress from regular life, so much so that scientists began to do research.

“Dance is one of the most whole-brain activities humans do,” says neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and author Dave Rabin.

Board-certified neuropsychologist and director of cognitive assessment group Wilford G. Van Gorp explained that, “Walking into a dance class is the start of a full neurological event.”

With increased activity, the hippocampus begins mapping. The brain and dopamine are released as the person anticipates the start of a dancing class. Neurons can fire as you watch people stretch, creating a sense of social connection. Dr. Rabin stated that the amygdala can also be activated to ensure the body is safe.

“Heart rate rises, blood flow increases, the cerebellum and the motor cortex come online, and the vagus nerve helps the body settle into regulated activation: energized, but not threatened,” he explained.

Dr. Rabin also shared that this doesn’t mean endorphin, serotonin, and oxytocin are all released in response to body movement, hearing music, and being sociable. With these factors, people start to feel safer, happier, and more comfortable in their bodies.

Dancing engages different parts of the brain as it coordinates and works together to execute the choreography.

“The prefrontal cortex handles the footwork while the limbic system reacts to the music, and neither one waits for the other,” Van Gorp revealed. This could explain why people find themselves reacting so expressively to music.

“With repetition, the basal ganglia and cerebellum can help automatically make the sequence of free attention for expression,” Dr. Rabin says.

With long-lasting effects of long-term dancing, according to Dr. Rabin, these effects can help the brain improve memory, balance, coordination, rhythm, and body awareness over time. Not only does it improve your brain. It can also improve other organs in your body, such as the heart, and help with mobility, balance, and flexibility.

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