One of the greatest and most accessible ways to connect with your body and tap into your inner life force is through dancing. This form of movement will especially bring benefits if you’re the kind of person that finds it difficult to disconnect their mind and just let their thoughts run free or if you don’t feel at ease with your body.
Regardless of your age, shape or physical abilities, dancing can be an extraordinary way to release emotions and clear your headspace. To this end, some cultures trust that dancing can bring you closer to divinity. Thankfully, there’s no routine you need to follow, but simply allow yourself to move freely and let your body express itself.
How Dancing Can Increase Your Well-Being and Help You Lead a Better Life
1. It Helps Boost Your Cognitive Skills
There are countless studies that show how dancing and mild movement will help improve your cognitive skills and protect you from neurodegenerative diseases. It seems that dancing enhances the same area of the brain that is in charge of memory, planning, and exercising. Another way dancing can help boost your cognitive skills is by requiring you to pay special attention to patterns, rhythm, and balance.
2. It Can Be a Social Activity
The amazing part about dancing is that it can be both a solitary or social activity. There are many forms of social dancing and they’re all great for your emotional health. You can either dance with your partner, with kids, in the club or in a dancing class. Whatever form you choose, this type of dancing will bring you closer to people by sharing a common, fun and personal experience.
3. It Can Be An Ailment for Your Body
If you have any pain in your body or limited mobility, you can rest assured that dancing will be the type of movement you need to help your body unwind. Dancing is a very flexible art form, in that it allows you to move at your own pace, using your own body language and whatever body parts you may want. Having said this, there’s a tremendous utility in getting the blood flowing and loosening your joints – it’s the kind of activity that can easily be integrated into a healthy lifestyle.
4. It Helps Release Pent Up Emotions
This is where dancing really shows its benefits for most people because it’s a powerful way to release bottled up emotions. Regardless if you’re engaging in a shamanic type of dance, mandala dance or simply improvising with your body, you’ll notice what a palliative method it is. Emotions will simply find a way to untangle themselves and flow more naturally, clearing your aura of any debris.
5. It Boosts Endurance and Muscle Strength
You may not actively seek to build muscle strength and physical endurance through dancing, but these are natural by-products of this amazing activity. There are so many twists, turns, lifts and steps in dancing, that it engages your entire body and your muscles need to develop the resistance to sustain certain dance moves. Soon enough, your body will enable this amazing feature called ‘muscle memory’, that will help it return to previously learned dance positions with less and less effort. On top of this, you’ll have more toned muscles and a more attractive figure in no time.
6. It Reduces Stress and Anxiety
By allowing your body to find its own way of expressing emotions, you also start embodying this sense of freedom that completely clears the mind and diminishes the negative brain. Dancing is often used by people around the world as a way to reduce stress and combat anxiety – it even helps with depression. There is such lightness, freedom, and connectedness in dancing that it’s impossible for you to leave the session the same person you were when you began it.
7. It Gives You the Energy Boost You Need
If you ever need an energy boost, even if you’re by yourself, play your favorite tunes and start dancing to them – the results are spectacular. There will be such a rush of endorphins, you’ll immediately get out of that sluggish mood you’re in and feel like you can conquer the world. It will give you the impulse you need to get out of the house more and welcome this well-deserved movement session with even more movement and lust for life.
Whether you do it at home by yourself or socially, in classes and get-togethers, dancing is a highly beneficial way to release stress, center yourself and release lingering emotions. It’s never too late to start and remember there is no right way to dance – just allow yourself to express your innermost feelings.
About the Author
‘Claudia Spataru is a free spirit located in Bucharest, Romania and always in search of answers to life’s greatest questions. She loves to understand how people work, what makes them tick and find ways to help them reach higher grounds. She adores the sea, traveling and laughing.’