From aerobic health benefits to improved bone health, flexibility, and mental health, busting a move can deliver a lot of advantages.
Dancing can be many things: An expression of art, a fun hobby, a representation of culture, and a great form of exercise.
“Dancing is the ultimate workout,” says Julie Granger, a Paris-based International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) personal trainer and founder and creator of The Studio Paris and Ballerina Body Training. Not only does dancing involve engaging all of your muscles and limbs, it also gets your heart pumping. Plus, dancing can be a whole lot of fun.
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The style of dance you do will influence how intense of a workout it is, but pretty much any style of dance can be a workout. Granger, who is also a former professional ballerina, says choose a type of dance according to your favorite tunes. You can sign up for a class at your local gym or studio, take one virtually, or hit the town. “No matter which you choose, and even if it is just dancing at the club on Saturday night, you will get benefits,” she says.
So, what are the specific health benefits of busting a move? Some are the health benefits that come with any type of exercise; others are unique to dance.
Here are some research-backed ways dancing can improve your health.
Like other aerobic exercise, dancing is great for improving cardiovascular function. A study published in 2016 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that people who engaged in moderate-intensity dancing (defined in the study as enough to make you out of breath or sweaty) were 46 percent less likely to develop heart disease or die from it than nondancers over 10 years of follow-up, according to population-based survey data of adults ages 40 and up. In comparison, moderate-intensity walkers were just 25 percent less likely to suffer heart health issues.
The study also notes the social aspect of dancing, and the relaxation that comes with it (more on this below), could be partly responsible for its health benefits.
Dance requires balance and helps build core strength, which helps promote good posture and prevent muscle injuries and back pain, according to Mayo Clinic.
Granger adds that this is particularly true for ballet. “In ballet, you train your body to stand still, often on one leg. This helps you train the deep muscles in your body, which you would not work otherwise,” she says. You are also engaging your abs, “which are an essential part to balancing,” she notes.
In addition to building strength, many forms of dance stretch the limbs of the body, which improves flexibility, says Elizabeth C Gardner, MD, an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon at Yale Medicine and associate professor at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. “Both of these (improved strength and flexibility) contribute to improved balance, which can help to avoid falls and reduce the risk of injury in other aspects of life,” she explains.
This is especially true for ballet dancers. “Ballet training involves a great deal of flexibility training. Flexibility means improved mobility, which means that any type of daily activity will be more enjoyable, whether you take yoga or you are trying to reach for the top cabinet in your kitchen,” says Granger.
Dancing is also a form of both aerobic and anaerobic exercise, which is a great calorie burner, Dr. Gardner says. “Jumping and twirling movements are great aerobic training, while holding positions of squatting and balance positions can turn on the anaerobic energy system,” she explains.
In general, the more up-tempo the dance style, the more calories and energy will be burned.
Depending on the style of dance and your bodyweight, 30 minutes of dancing can burn between 90 and 252 calories, according to Harvard Medical School. This type of high-intensity calorie burning can help support weight loss if you’re trying to shed pounds. If you want to maximize calorie burn, Granger suggests taking a dance cardio class, designed to blast calories and improve physical fitness.
“As a form of weight-bearing activity, unlike a stationary bike or swimming, dancing can help to maintain bone density,” says Gardner. Per the National Osteoporosis Foundation, high-impact and weight-bearing exercises, including some forms of dance, help you effectively maintain and even build new bone mass.
Some research suggests for older adults with osteoporosis, dancing can help reverse some of the damage of that chronic condition. Other research in children suggests that those who took ballet had better bone mineral content after a three-year period compared with children who didn’t do ballet.
Dance often requires learning moves and routines (choreography).
“There’s actually some very good evidence that social dancing can reduce the risk of cognitive decline as we get older,” says Carolyn Fredericks, MD, a neurologist at Yale Medicine, citing a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine involving 469 people over the age of 75. Out of all the physical activities, including walking, bicycling, stair climbing, swimming, and group exercise classes, dancing was the only activity associated with a lower risk of dementia.
“We always recommend that older adults seek out cardiovascular exercise and social engagement, and cognitive challenge — social dancing gets all three of these,” Dr. Fredericks says.
Research shows that dance can help decrease anxiety, increase self-esteem, and improve psychological well-being.
And certain types of dance have even been used as treatment for depression. Research published in 2019 in Frontiers in Psychology found that dance movement therapy (DMT) — defined by the American Dance Therapy Association as the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being — was effective in treating depression.
If you’ve had a tough day, have you ever cranked up your favorite tunes and busted a move to blow off some steam? Any type of movement can help bust stress, according to Mayo Clinic. But dance may be particularly good for doing this.
Research published in The International Journal on the Biology of Stress, for example, found that DMT also impacted the cortisol awakening response, a marker of chronic stress, while high intensity aerobic activity did not.
Social connectedness and interaction is a really important part of mental and physical health. Much research shows that feeling lonely or socially isolated can have myriad negative health effects.
“Dancing is sharing, and when you take class surrounded by other people, you know you all have something in common. You are not here to compete, you are here to enjoy, and there is an amazing feeling that comes with that,” Granger says. “Go take a class, and feel the energy of the room.”
Alonzo Sexton, MD, is a board certified orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta specializing in sports medicine who has been in clinical practice since 2006. The president and founder of ATL Orthopedics, a private orthopedic practice that focuses on representative care and new technology, Dr. Sexton specializes in the treatment of sports injuries at the professional, collegiate, and amateur levels and has particular expertise in shoulder and knee surgical treatment. He also currently serves as CEO and founder of nCight, a service that uses blockchain technology to unlock patient and physician data assets to support the activities of private, independent physicians.
Prior to his current roles, Sexton practiced at Northside Hospital in Atlanta from 2018 to 2021, where he established a new sports medicine service line for the hospital. From 2006 to 2018, he worked at the Athens Orthopedic Clinic in Georgia where, as a member of the board of directors, he was instrumental in the expansion and governance of the practice. His particular niche during this time was in evaluation and decision-making regarding the implementation of new technologies, specifically creating a risk-benefit profile of electronic medical record systems, data management systems, automated kiosks, and virtual scribe systems, to name a few. He is considered a health IT thought leader and has a deep understanding of blockchain technology, having lectured extensively on the topic and currently serving on the board of directors for Patientory, a company focused on health record interoperability via blockchain.
Along with his medical and health IT expertise, Sexton’s additional talents lie in his ability to synthesize complex technical topics into segments that can be understood by a broad audience. His medical experiences within both the world of private practice and a large healthcare system have provided him with the proper perspective to make recommendations that consider the nuanced challenges of these separate yet connected worlds. He has deep expertise in clinical practice management and culture, as well as an understanding of the motivations of private practice organization in regards to the changing healthcare landscape.
Sexton has served on the board of directors of Extra Special People and Camp Hooray in Georgia, nonprofits that work with families of children with disabilities to provide support and opportunities for the children to have experiences similar to their differently abled peers. He also served as president of his chapter of the Sigma Pi Phi fraternity, during which time he was responsible for developing an award-winning mentoring program for young African American males that focused on identifying, celebrating, and rewarding excellence.
Sexton received a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford University and an MD from Emory University. He served as team physician for the University of Georgia from 2006 to 2017 and for Georgia State University from 2019 to 2021. In 2021, he was selected as a fellow for the Herndon Directors Institute, which seeks solutions for the inclusion of minorities and women in corporate leadership, and is currently participating in their board preparedness program.
Sexton has been married for more than 20 years and has two children. He is an experienced traveler, having visited over 30 countries, and enjoys golf and skiing in his spare time.
Leah Groth is a Philadelphia-based writer and editor specializing in health, wellness, and lifestyle. She regularly contributes to top media outlets, including VeryWell, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Women's Health, Reader's Digest, Health, CBS, Prevention, Harper's Bazaar, Woman's Day, Marie Claire, Woman's World, Parents, Livestrong, BestLife, and mindbodygreen.
Whether composing an essay about her personal addiction struggles for Babble, curating an expert-driven slide show about foods that promote weight loss on Prevention, or interviewing an internationally renowned physician about the celery juice craze for Livestrong, she is fully immersed in every assignment, delivering superior content her clients are proud to publish.
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