What are the benefits of dance? Let's ask some scientists!

I love dancing, and I believe it in as a tool for wellness. If you get me going, I'll present a length dissertation about the myriad reasons I think you should be moving that body. But I'm not alone in thinking dance is excellent for your body, mind, and spirit. Let's look at a few recent scientifc studies on what dance can do for you!

Dance is good for your brain.

Two Australian studies from last year showed dancing to be an incredibly powerful tool to improve mood and cognition. What's happening in Australia that makes them so interested in dance? I don't know, but I'm here for it.

One study investigated the effectiveness of various types of exercise on "major depressive disorder," and dance came out on top! Dance scored higher than walking or jogging, twice as high as yoga, and three times as high as cycling! It even scored higher than exercise combined with SSRIs. I know from my own history how powerful dance is at improving mental health, so I loved seeing my own experience confirmed by science.

Another study looked at a wider range of emotional and cognitive concerns. Their results indicated that dance is better than other physical activities at improving motivation, memory, and social cognition and "to reduce distress." They also found it to be equal to other types of movement for Parkinson's, anxiety, and depression. Strangely, they determined it was less effective than other stuff for decresed stress and "lanugage fluency," so go ahead and stick with DuoLingo for all that.

Also, dance makes you look cool. I can't cite a study, but we have photographic evidence.

Dance is good for your body.

Check out this dance-loving sentence from a 2010 study: "The exercise benefits of dance include increased flexibility, increase in muscle strength and tone, increased endurance, balance, and spatial awareness, and general feeling of well-being." I can't prove it, but I feel like they may have been looking at bellydance specifically, because they go on to talk about "hip drips, figure 8s, circles, and shimmies," extolling their ability to decrease and prevent back pain.

A fun study this year looked into the benefits of freeform dancing, wondering if wiggling around in your kitchen while sauteing onions gets the job done. Spoiler alert: it does! Even without music, participants doing their own thang for five minutes increased their heart rates enough to categorize their dance as "vigorous physical activity." Their conclusion? "Obstensibly, one can choose to dance however one wishes, wherever one wants, and with few resources."

Dance is good for your social life.

Alice, age 72, practices stress relief via sword dancing at Sacred Shimmy Studio.

There are studies that discuss the social benefits of dancing with other people, but that's not what I want to focus on here. I want to talk about one of my absolute favorite things about dancing - it allows me to be in company with other people without having to talk the whole time.

I hate parties. I hate small talk. I love to be friendly, but I hate talking about the weather with the barista at the coffeeshop. I'm a Scorpio - small talk is not our wheelhouse. I want every conversation to start with, "how broken is your heart today?" or "who do you want to kill today?" and just carry on from there.

When I dance with someone else, I get everything I want from human interaction without a barrage of words, words, words. I get to see who they are when they feel silly. When they feel powerful. When they feel like being a little bad. And they get to see those aspects of me, too, without me feeling too exposed or vulnerable.

When I dance, I am the truest version of myself and also the most courageous, and that's the version of myself I want to share with other people.

Wanna give it a try?

Come join us at Sacred Shimmy Studio, where we learn dance through an inclusive, accessible, body positive lens. We start with the assumption that all bodies are awesome bodies, and it's our job to figure out all the cool stuff they can do. Check out our beginner bellydance classes - if you don't experience some of the stuff I'm talking about here, I'll eat my hat. And if coming to class isn't your style, I've got a bunch of videos on Patreon that'll get you stuff to do while the onions brown.