Dancing, Weight Loss and Mental Health

It is very rare to encounter an effective dancer who is morbidly obese. There is a reason why ballroom dancers have flat stomachs. Even the backing dancers in hip hop and pop music will have lithe bodies. This is because dancing is one of the most effective ways to lose weight. It is a very enjoyable activity and you end up losing weight in all sorts of places without even noticing it. Above all dancing is a community activity which can reduce the loneliness of single life.

Keep dancing into your old age

If you feel that weight loss is no longer a serious issue, you should not give up on dancing. The dance routines can be made a bit simpler in order to ensure that your body is not straining too much. At the same it is a good idea to keep in touch with your old dancing partners so that you are in a position to enjoy their company at all times when you need it. Dancing is both a skill and a pastime.

The great thing about dancing is the fact that there are so many genres that you are virtually guaranteed a niche. It will never come to pass that there is no way that you can find a dance that is interesting. All you need to do is keep dancing and the rest will fall into place. The routines that you follow will not be of the utmost importance. Your continued enjoyment is what matters at this stage.

Dancing and mental capacities

Recent studies have shown that dancing is one of the most stimulating abilities for our mental capacities and it is recommended for elderly people to dance at least once per week in order to keep prevent the loss of mental abilities. Scientists have speculated about the reasons for this astonishing effect and the most probable answer they came up with is that dancing not only keeps our body healthy but also demands mental presence, concentration and improvisation. They found that the dances that have the highest correlation with absence of diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinsons's disease are dances like swing. In fact, the study was done on people who learned to dance in the 1920s or 1930s. These dances are very vivid and constantly demand the dancer's attention and improvisation. The correlation between mental health and these dances was even greater than the correlation between mental health and playing memory-related games such as chess or different card-games.