Dancing on ylennetty olevan hyvää sekä ruumiille että sielulle vuosisatojen, tiedämme, että se voi hyödyttää meidän fyysistä terveyttä, koska se antaa meille sydän workout, ja tiedämme, että tanssi tuntuu meistä hyvältä läpi endorfiineja, joita vapautuu harjoituksen aikana, but we have never really considered how dancing could be making us smarter too. Some of the latest research around dancing for health has shown that stress reduction is also a benefit and the pleasure we get from dancing raises the serotonin levels in the brain, making us feel good. But have we ever been told that dancing makes us smarter before now?
Holding Off The Aging Process
Research is now telling us that dancing is a way of fighting the aging process, holding the march of time at bay and allowing us to retain all of our cognitive abilities for a good while longer. It has long been known that continued stimulation of the brain can help us to hold off dementia and debilitating illness such as Alzheimer’s Disease, but it seems that dancing not only stimulates our physical health and well being, it also stimulates the mind. The latest study, carried out in the United States was designed to highlight the effects of dance on the changes in mental acuity brought on by aging.
Dancing Against Dementia
This was not a flash in the pan study, results were gathered over a period of twenty one years, and involved studying people aged seventy five and over. The basis of the study was to show whether there were any specific recreational activities, either cognitive or physical that had more of a benefit to overall health and wellbeing than others. Other recreational activities taken into account involved reading, creative writing, crosswords and Sudoku puzzles, card games and access to musical instruments. Included in the physical side of the study was a range of more physical past times such as tennis, swimming, golf, cycling, walking and of course dancing. One result that was not expected was that most of the physical activities, though providing benefits for physical health did nothing to improve cognitive ability even when good levels of coordination and forethought were required, with one exception – dance.
Dementia Reducing Statistics
The results of the study show a percentage value in dementia risk reduction.
- Reading – Dementia risk reduced by 35%
- Swimming & Cycling – Dementia risk reduced by 0%
- Crosswords (4 days a week) – Dementia risk reduced by 47%
- Golfing – Dementia risk reduced by 0%
- Dancing Regularly – Dementia risk reduced by 76%
Dancing provided the greatest dementia risk reduction of any other activity which was studied. This is freestyle dancing where the mind has to make split second decisions as to where to move the body, not regimented, or memorised dances. This form of dancing keeps the brain active on so many more levels than any other recreational activity studied. In essence it doesn’t matter whether you dance well, as long as you dance often.
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