Dancing: 5 psychological benefits of dancing

Dancing also provides multiple benefits on a psychological level.

According to evolutionists, dancing established itself among the human species playing a fundamental role in the evolution of social relationships, due to its ability to bond individuals emotionally, regardless of language skills.The ability of dance to bond individuals emotionally, regardless of linguistic skills.

This makes dance a universal language existing in all cultures. In 2009, the Hungarian István Winkler demonstrated that people are born with a rhythmic-musical sense, which makes the desire to move to the rhythm of music an innate capacity of human beings.

Benefits of dance

It has been known for many years that physical activity and the practice of sports provide many physical benefits, helping for example to improve the functioning of the respiratory, circulatory and skeletal apparatus. But when we dance, we get the benefits of aerobic physical activity, and we also benefit on the psychological and emotional level.

1. Dancing helps us connect with ourselves.

Dancing awakens emotions and fantasies through movement, which facilitates the expression of sensations, emotions, feelings and moods in a natural and uninhibited way. In this way we can connect with ourselves and with the emotions that we repress, such as rage and anger, or anxiety and anguish, which can be channeled through dance.These emotions can be channeled in a healthy way by dancing, which helps to control emotions in our daily life.

In addition, dance is a form of creative expression which helps to connect with oneself, enhancing and encouraging spontaneity and creativity that we carry within.

2. It helps us connect with others

As we mentioned in the first lines, dancing is a social activityThis provides many opportunities to interact with other people. Attending dance classes can improve interpersonal relationships, as it is a meeting point for making friends and improving the development of social skills.

Another example of dancing as a socializing agent can be observed when young people reach adolescence (and the process of secondary socialization begins), a vital moment in which it is very common for boys and girls to start going to discos. In this type of places the effect of dancing acts as a disinhibitor and social enhancer, and again dancing and meeting new people go hand in hand.

3. Improves mood

Dancing is a pleasant and relaxing distraction that makes almost everyone enjoy, so it is likely that if we observe a person dancing we will surely find a smile on his face. As it is a distraction, helps the mind to decenter from the problems and worries that flood it during the day. that flood it during the day, making it easier to stop thinking negatively, and thus reducing the states of tension and stress, obtaining feelings of well-being.

It also helps to channel the adrenaline and induce joy, increasing vitality, motivation and enthusiasm for life, which makes people more positive.

By improving the mood of people who practice it, several researchers have wanted to study its effects on mood disorders, one of the most conclusive research is a study conducted in Korea in 2005 and published in the journal International Journal of Neuroscience where it was found that dance movement therapy (DMT) in adolescents with mild depression regulated stress by decreasing dopamine levels and improved mood by increasing serotonin levels.

4. Improves self-esteem and self-confidence

As we mentioned in the second point of this list, dancing helps to establish relationships with other people, and it has been demonstrated that maintaining good emotional ties and socializing with people contribute to increase self-esteem and positive attitudes towards oneself and others.. Attending dance classes is an excellent method to overcome shyness by helping people overcome their fear of "ridicule" since, for example, a fall while dancing is a typical failure that all dancers have had at some time and is not seen by them as something to be ashamed of.

Another way in which it also helps to improve self-confidence is that each time a new dance step is mastered, the person experiences an increase in confidence as this is considered an achievement, and each achievement positively reinforces the self-concept, transferring self-confidence to other aspects of life.

5. Dancing increases intelligence and prevents brain aging

A few days ago we elaborated in Psychology and Mind a curious list of tricks to increase intelligence. Ballroom dancing, like most structured dances, requires memorizing the steps and working in pairs, for this the person has to concentrate and maintain their attention in a sustained manner, all this together, provides mental challenges that are key to maintaining mental agility and brain health.

One of the purposes of human intelligence is decision making, while dancing we have to make quick decisions continuously and in many occasions it is not useful to resort to a fixed pre-established pattern of action, as it happens when we perform other physical activities such as running, cycling or swimming. Thus, while dancing, the brain has to "reinvent" itself continuously and make use of brain plasticity, which causes neurons to be very active.

Psychologist Peter Lovattformer professional dancer, has proven that dancing helps us with decision making. His studies conclude that improvisation in dancing helps us to better cope with problems where there are multiple solutions. different (divergent thinking), while the very structured dance is a type of dance that depends on very precise and highly structured movements that makes the thinking is exercised in problems in which we have to find a single answer or solution (convergent thinking).

Another of the most relevant studies that relate dancing with an increase in intelligence, is the one led by M. Joe Verghese (2003), who attributes this effect of dancing to the fact that when we learn to dance and we link new steps, it increases the neuronal synapses.

Benefits in the structure of the brain

His team of scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New YorkIn their study, they reveal that the aerobic exercise of dancing can reverse the loss of volume of the hippocampus, a key brain structure for memory, which over the years is shrinking and causing memory problems, which can degenerate into dementia. With this they demonstrated that the physical and mental effort required by dancing can increase memory, reducing the risk of dementia and diminishing its effects, which indicates that dancing protects the brain in the long term.

To reach these conclusions they compared dancing with other mental activities such as reading, solving crossword puzzles and pastimes, etc. and with other physical activities such as playing sports, riding a bicycle or walking. According to their results, while crossword puzzles lowered the risk of dementia by 47% the risk of dementia, frequent dancing reduces it by as much as one 76%. So we can conclude that dancing is one of the best remedies against brain aging..

Following the line of Joe Verghese, researchers at the Canadian University of McGill in 2005 McGill University in 2005studied the effects of dancing tango on people with Parkinson's disease and concluded that dancing stimulates the dancing stimulates the central nervous system and brain activity much more than other sporting disciplines, since the emotional report of the dance is much greater than that of other sports.The emotional report, since it is a social activity, is much greater. But perhaps it is more interesting what the patients themselves report, some of them express that when the music plays the trembling of their body fades to flow with the tango itself and that it also helps them to improve coordination and balance.

In short: don't forget to dance

After this exposition of the beneficial effects of dancing for the human psyche, it has to be admitted that dancing has therapeutic effects on most people, and I would like to end this writing with a sentence that sums it up very well:

"Dance is medicine through rhythm, space, energy, form and time, which coats the body with substances that heal physical and psychological ailments."