You are born to dance.
Have you ever been listening to the stereo and automatically start tapping your feet or otherwise moving to the beat? “It’s an instinctive response,” says Costas Karageorghis, Ph.D., a music and sports researcher and coauthor of Inside Sport Psychology. That’s because you’re hardwired to move to the music, possibly because even primitive cultures used rhythmic movements to express themselves. Richard Ebstein, Ph.D., a professor in the psychology department at the National University of Singapore, adds that it’s a universal phenomenon. Even birds and bees use dance to communicate
The instinctual rhythm response starts in your brain, where musical syncing to the rhythm and you suddenly start to move – maybe even just a finger, but more likely, a toe. These same circuits are integrated with your brain’s communication and memory systems, which is why songs can trigger emotional reactions—-and why you may find yourself singing, swaying and choking up to a sad song or suddenly floating back to a time when a song was significant to you.
Get on the Floor—-for Your Health
Dancing is good for your heart. Circulation: Heart failure found that people with cardiac conditions who danced for just 20 minutes three times a week saw their heart health improve significantly more than those who stuck to traditional cardio workouts. Dancing can also help make your skeleton strong, per the National Osteoporosis Foundation and it does wonders for your overall makeup. When researchers compared dancers with non-dancers, they found evidence that dancing may preserve both motor skills and perceptual abilities. Dancing with others also leads to less stress and stronger social bonds, key factors in both mental and physical health, says Verghese, and with line dancing you don’t have to have a partner.
But perhaps the coolest part about grooving is that it saves your mind-—literally. Dancing gives your memory coordination and focuses an intense workout, leading to stronger synapses and beefed-up gray matter. The result: Dancers can be sharper in the short term and less likely to succumb to brain diseases in the long run. A New England Journal of Medicine study of 11
The Best Dancing for Novices: Line Dancing
It isn’t just country anymore: Modern classes are set to tunes like soul, R&B and hip-hop. “The rhythm is generally easy to follow and the movements are repetitive, so you can catch on quickly.
Move to the Music is an opportunity to get you started:
Eight sessions, 1 ½ hours, $40, Tuesdays, January 17 through March 7. HOA 1 Fitness Center, 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. Soft soled athletic shoes required. Class size limited to 15.
You will be dancing immediately. Basic line dance moves will be used to produce a moderate exercise routine. All of the routines taught will easily transfer to other line dance venues or learned quickly enough to enable dancing at typical SaddleBrooke social events.
Taught by Bonnie Schoenfelder, a 10 year member of SaddleBrooke Line Dance Club and Instructor in Line Dance for Bloomington Minnesota Parks and Recreation Department. Questions: call 952-897-0291 or email [email protected].