Dancing to conquer anxiety

“Dance, when you are broken open. Dance, if you have torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you are perfectly free.” – Rumi

Anxious, feeling low, or angry? Try hitting the dance floor.

According to research, dancing can boost self-esteem and confidence, reduce anxiety and depression, and increase overall happiness. An imminent group of research team suggests that such dance may provide more mood benefits than other types of cardio exercise.

While 30 minutes of adrenalizing activity a day is a familiar way to strengthen and tone muscles, boost the aging brain, and improve mood, studies suggest that dance can help reduce anxiety more than common exercise. It was found to lower depression. Several research suggests dance can improve or alleviate the quality of life in people with Alzheimer’s and have a positive effect on the mental, physical, emotional, and social performance of persons with dementia.

Why does it work, beyond the benefits of any good form of exercise? Dance therapy provides a space to express aspects of our personality that might be suppressed, sore, or for individual or social reasons discouraged. Our body holds every experience we have ever had, through dance one will be able to release something that they have been holding, wrapped away in the muscle, it has the memory of it, and when we are dancing, we are releasing everything that has been unsettling.

Dance movement therapy (DMT) is built on the idea that dance can be part of the therapeutic process, a way to connect non-verbally. It fuses some of the well-known, optimistic effects on mental health that exercise generally provides, along with rather deeper ones that can be expressly useful when other therapies are ineffective. Innately, dance is all about connection and expression.

And dancing can be used as a way of repressing feelings of worry or anxiety as it can release endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenaline, which give you feelings of happiness. If you are feeling worried or anxious, then dancing may be a great way to release tension and get your heart rate up in a good way. It will trigger positive feelings in your brain that can make you feel less stressed and anxious. Dance may soon find its way into the prescription of doctors.