Contents
The benefits of dancing for your brain
Psychology
Dancing summons all kinds of skills: balance, muscular effort, coordination, expressiveness, etc., but the benefits on our nervous system are also key
Dance. That activity that has been with us since the beginning of time and that unleashes all kinds of responses on a physical and emotional level. What is the scientific basis to explain such an effect? How does our body benefit when we dance? Based on the advances in neuroscience in the last twenty years, and after experiencing the dance benefits In the first person, the French neurobiologist and popularizer Lucy Vincent decided to dedicate herself to understanding what happens in the brain and in the body when a person begins to dance.
«By dancing we develop skills of balance, flexibility, physical strength, understanding of space, listening to others, self-knowledge and self-confidence“Says the author of” Do
dance to your brain! ».
Each filtering bag dance benefits in our health are socially recognized: we know that dancing we exercise and it makes us feel good. It is no coincidence that the offer of activities related to dance and dance has skyrocketed: those ubiquitous swing classes, Zumba courses or, from the therapeutic field, psychodance … Years ago, they were salsa classes, ballroom or country dances … And before that, the twist revolution or rock and roll, a phenomenon of the time.
Lucy Vincent confesses that she herself began to dance thinking that it would be “easy”, but what was not expected was that the dance would make her question her vision as a neurobiologist about the relationship between body and brain. Their findings, based on research in movement and neuroscience, disprove certain beliefs about the physical exercise and open new fields in calls movement therapies, predicting that in the future certain exercises will become typified to stimulate the different organs and systems of the body.
Dancing for our brains
With dance you not only get happier and even lose weight, it also slows down the brain aging and makes stress dissipate. For Lucy Vincent, dancing provides three types of brain benefits:
1. Like any type of exercise, it maintains the vascular network so that neurons and glial cells receive nutrients and oxygen they need to survive and function.
2. Because the learning of new coordinations requires the creation of new networks in the cerebellum, there is an increase in neuronal growth factors, especially BDNF (bone-derived nerve growth factor), which is favorable for the growth and maintenance of all neurons.
3. Move to rhythm of the music, coordinate different parts of the body, make movements in sync with other people … all have effects on the release of oxytocin and endorphins, which promote the sense of well-being and vanishes stress, which is detrimental to the health of all organs.
But it is also worth noting that experiments were conducted to compare brain degradation in Seniors of 65 years that they practiced dance compared to another group that practiced exercises of the same intensity and frequency but composed of Repetitive movements and it was found that the size of the hippocampus and memory functions were better preserved in those who practiced dance. ‘These effects are probably due to the development of neural networks as a result of the constant learning of new coordinations and the release of growth hormones such as BDNF», Says the expert.
Dancing from afar is also dancing
Faced with that famous phrase attributed to Robert Frost announcing that “Dance is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire”, Lucy Vincent affirms that, although it is true that dancing can become a kind of substitute for sex, the analogy extends to loving relationships, friendship, empathy and social cohesion in general. All of this, in turn, influences our attitudes, helps us develop certain skills, and undoubtedly affects our creativity. Couple relationships, as well as work dynamics or the school performance, they can be highly benefited by this activity.
“When we dance with another person in a contact position, we start a new type of conversation with her based on listening to the body so that each one expresses himself in a different way and we can discover the other in a new light,” he says.
In addition, dance is excellent for creativity: by promoting the creation and use of new networks, new links are created between sensorimotor zones, which favors moments of inspiration. “Einstein talked a lot about using music to force new ways of thinking, and dance does the same,” concludes Lucy Vincent.