Dance and healthy ageing

Did you know the following fun facts?

• Creative activities increase neuroplasticity in your brain.
• Keeping your heart healthy will help keep your brain healthy, too.
• Regular gentle exercise helps you age well.

Well, there's a fun activity that can give you all these perks and more. Dancing has all the physical benefits of sport, along with the cognitive benefits of art. Plus, the social and emotional benefits of both.

And it's been around a long time. Dancing figures can even be seen on rock paintings from the Palaeolithic period. So why not make this ancient cultural phenomenon part of your healthy ageing journey?

Dance is great for aerobic fitness, endurance, and weight loss. This helps keep your heart working well. In fact, people who engage in moderate-intensity dancing have been found less likely to develop heart disease.

It also improves balance, coordination, and reaction time. And it builds up your strength and flexibility, as well as your bone and joint health. All this together has the added benefit of lowering your risk of getting injured in a fall.

As a matter of fact, one of the first measures you can take for falls prevention is to improve your balance by moving as much as you can, however you can. And dance can make moving easy to do, because of the fun factor.

Dance exists in varied and ancient traditions all over the world. And many different styles have great cultural significance. This supports a sense of belonging and identity.

It's also a social sport. So, it helps you stay connected with your community and builds your social skills. Partnered dancing, such as ballroom dancing, can even increase your empathy. It involves motor imitation and artistic training, which play big parts in empathic ability. 

The artistic aspect means dance can be used for emotional communication. And exploring or expressing your feelings can alleviate depression and anxiety. It can give you catharsis, a release of negative emotions.

The best brain exercise you can do is to keep learning new things. And do things that require rapid decision making and creative problem solving.

Learning a new style of dance is great for your brain, especially if it involves some freestyling. The freestyle aspect will force you to improvise and make split-second decisions as you move. Challenging yourself like this also promotes a healthy mindset of lifelong learning.

Pro tip: Following a dance partner's lead is a fabulous challenge for your brain. You're reading, predicting, and responding to your partner's actions. (Powers 2010.) This only adds to all the other things your brain is doing to keep you grooving on the dancefloor.

Dancing is associated with reduced risk of developing dementia. This might have something to do with all the cognitive reserve it builds. It could also be related to how dancing helps maintain heart health, which is linked to brain health.

Dance is also helpful to people who have dementia. This is because creativity and artistic skills are supported by wide brain areas. This makes them greatly resistant to brain damage. In fact, Dance Movement Therapy can delay cognitive deterioration and improve mood and social interaction in people with dementia. It also provides a valuable nonverbal method of communication. 

Or you might want to start by simply putting on your favourite music at home.

It would be best to do this with friends or family around. Impromptu dance parties can be great for bonding with toddler grandchildren. 

You can gently move however the music makes you want to move. Maybe start with tapping your foot to the beat. Then develop this movement until you can sway to the tune with your whole body. Try singing along; that's good for you too.

Just remember, the way to get the most out of dancing is to enjoy yourself.