Dance Away the Stress

by bkjax

Dance is a great stress-reducer, and it’s hard to feel down when your feet are moving to the music. Gain the benefits whether you move on your own, with a partner, or with a dance therapist. And the good news is, the rewards last over time.

The characters in “Grey’s Anatomy” are right. Dancing it off really works. But it’s nothing new. They’re on to something even our ancestors practiced. Dancing is as old as life, and its favorable effects on the mind and body have been known for ages. In recent decades, dance has been recognized as a therapeutic tool, and dance therapy is now widely used in a range of therapeutic settings. But its remedial aspects were known even among primitive tribes, who, according to educator, researcher, and family therapist Pauline Boss, worked out their trauma by dancing around the fire. As these primitive people knew, dance is a powerful means of releasing emotion and energy — a way of draining pent-up negative feelings.

It’s well known that rhythmic movement has numerous physical benefits. It offers a good cardiovascular workout, improves core strength, and helps build flexibility and stamina. Sustained movement lowers blood pressure, increases endurance, and boosts metabolism. And research indicates that it improves memory and cognition while it decreases the risk of dementia as you age.

But dancing isn’t merely good for your physical health. There’s a significant body of evidence indicating it’s a potent stress-buster and a mood lifter. As famed hoofer Debbie Reynolds once said, “That’s what I love about dance. It makes you happy, fully happy.” Moving to music takes your mind out of time. It trips the release of feel-good neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine, improving mood and easing tension at the same time that it helps your brain develop new neural networks.

“Dance releases endorphins and oxytocin in the same way as laughter, creating positive mood and decreasing stress,” observes dance therapist Chandra Chaikin, MS, LMFT, R-DMT.  “Dance also tends to balance out emotional energy as a result of allowing our bodies to shake and move.”

Research shows dance relieves anxiety, reduces anger and depression, and boosts focus and concentration. One Australian study demonstrated that those who learned to tango were better able to relieve depression and anxiety than were those who meditated. And at the University of London, study participants with anxiety were assigned to one of four classes — math, music, exercise, or modern dance. Only those participating in the modern dance class saw relief for anxiety.

How to Get More Steps in Your Day . . . Without a Fitness Tracker

Keep it simple. Just dance around the house in your underwear. Take a cue from a cliché and dance like no one’s watching. It doesn’t matter what steps you take or what you look like. Just turn on some music and move. You’ll get rewards if you shimmy and shake for only five to ten minutes a day. Even one session of jumping around to music is enough to release mood-boosting brain chemicals and reduce depression. As Diane Nodell, former performer, choreographer, and adjunct professor of dance observes, “If nothing else, dancing around the house is movement without judgment. It gets the adrenalin moving through the body and the blood flowing — a true cardiovascular workout only with undeniable freedom of expression!”

Find a partner. Dancing alone can bring about the physical and mental benefits, but dancing with others also deepens social connections, promotes bonding, and reduces loneliness. Dancing with a partner in a style that requires physical contact, such as country line dancing, swing, or other forms of ballroom dancing, further offers a dose of therapeutic touch and stimulates the release of oxytocin — the “cuddle” hormone. The psychological benefits of touch are added to the rewards of movement. Grab a partner and go out dancing once a week. The rewards will last through the week.

Change up your workout. Take part in a dance-based workout such as Zumba at your local gym or move to CD- or Internet-based dance videos several days a week. Learn more about dance fitness here.

Take a class: Tap, jazz, salsa, hip-hop, ballroom — it doesn’t matter what kind of class it is as long as it gets you moving and takes you out of your mind, above your thoughts. In addition to the benefits inherent in moving your body, learning a new skill increases feelings of self-competence and enhances coping abilities.

Find a weekend workshop: The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Canyon Ranch in four locations, for example, regularly offer workshops and retreats in various kinds of dance and transformational movement.

Take it to another level with dance therapy. The American Dance Therapy Association defines dance/movement therapy as “the psychotherapeutic use of movement to further the emotional, cognitive, physical, and social integration of the individual.” It recognizes both that some emotions are more easily expressed nonverbally and that emotions, even trauma, are stored in the body. Dance therapy has long been used for disease prevention, stress reduction, and treatment of pain, PTSD and other types of trauma, and behavioral health issues. Therapists use a range of techniques to assess nonverbal communication and intervene with movement. Numerous studies provide support for its success. A randomized controlled trial, for example, found that individuals who participated in 10 sessions of a dance movement therapy intervention experienced decreased psychological distress that endured for six months after the treatment.

According to Christine Matteson, a licensed creative arts therapist specializing in dance therapy, there are misconceptions about dance therapy. People assume therapy means anything that makes them feel good, she says, adding that with dance you sweat, move, communicate, express, and relate to yourself and others. Dance therapy ultimately makes you feel good, Matteson says, “but it’s process — of increasing consciousness and expanding one’s movement repertoire in a therapeutic container with a therapist who is trained to facilitate, witness, teach, and move with a client.” In the end, she says, it can lead to healing and positive transformation.

“When we move,” Chaikin says, “synapses are sent through the brain that not only go through the motor/coordination portion of the brain, but also pass through our center of cognition, emotions, sense of agency, and memory. That is why focusing on our movement patterns and what our body is telling us is able to provide us with information and help us to process what is going on. We can literally move through our story of our stressor and create our new outcome or we can learn to be more aware of where our stress is coming from and find ways to allow ourselves to let it go.”

In a similar way, Chaikin adds, dance therapy can address trauma and loss. The therapy, however, “may go more in depth and might also incorporate art and more complex interventions from the dance therapist to create safety and containment for processing the feelings and developing increased self awareness and coping skills. Use of rhythm, breath, and spinal connection have been found to be very helpful with trauma among other things.”

For individuals who have had trauma and stress related to family separation and genetic identity issues, Matteson says, a dance movement therapist would work to assist a client “with creating sense of safety, trust, and stability; with integration of the trauma; and with the development of the self.” Unlike a dance class, she says, “The focus is on the therapeutic process, not product. We do not prescribe dances! Take two tangos and call me in the morning!” The emphasis is on the therapeutic relationship, she says, on “expanding one’s movement repertoire so the individual, family, and/or group have more ways of coping with both internal and external stressors, and on working with symbolic, creative expression within the therapeutic container.”

To explore dance therapy, choose a dance therapist with training that meets the standards set by the American Dance Therapy Association, which offers an online directory. And you can learn more by listening to the association’s ADTA Talks.

Just Move

It doesn’t matter how you dance, just get yourself in motion. Dance promises improved health and mood, reduced stress, increased confidence, and, when done with others, an increased sense of community.

Take it from one of the world’s greatest dancers, Agnes de Mille:

To dance is to be out of yourself.

Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.

This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.

So start now. Click on this video and dance along. No one is watching.

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