Do You Hate to Exercise but Love to Dance?

Well, put on your dancing shoes!

I have always loved to dance, especially in high school and college.  Some of those 70’s and 80’s bands had great vibrating rhythms that were perfect for “rocking some great moves” while losing your hearing at the same time!  

I was co-captain of our high school’s pom pom squad (yes…embarrassing moment… we were actually called “the pom pom girls”, even though we rarely used pom poms in our routines!)  The other co-captain and I choreographed dance routines to our small band’s music and our squad performed those routines at the basketball games.  This is probably where I got my obsession with watching “Dancing with the Stars”. I’ve been known to really get into that show, and I could even start to sweat from feeling their anxiety of remembering the moves.

I Hate Exercise

Well, if you knew me well, you would find out that I don’t really like to sweat or work out very hard anymore, unless it is landscaping my own yard and garden.  But I have found out that I still love to dance to my Taylor Swift CD or some other fun rhythms.   I do it in my living room.   By myself.  Every now and then, my husband joins me and we’ve been known to dance around our living room to a couple of Ed Sheeran songs. 

If exercise is not an enjoyable experience, we’re much less likely to do it. And the bottom line is that dancing is, plain and simple, fun in the way a monotonous treadmill run probably never will be. Plus, boogying and jiving trigger the release of feel good hormones like serotonin and endorphins.

You’ll be more likely to stick with a fitness routine if it’s fun.  You’re also more likely to do it for a longer period of time than some boring thing like stationary bicycle riding.  You might think about it differently, “I’m not exercising, I’m dancing”.  But at the end of the day, you’re moving and you’re burning calories.

Studies Show Dancing is Great Exercise

According to one report I recently read, dancing is just as good an exercise as jogging.  Can you believe that?  Depending on the intensity, 30 minutes of dancing can burn between 130 to 250 calories, about the same as jogging.  Dancing is a full-body workout.

Of course, the amount of energy you expend and calories that are burned has a lot to do with how hard you’re pushing yourself. A gentle two-step isn’t going to measure up to an intense, hilly jog. But burning calories isn’t the only upside to dancing.  The up-and-down and side-to-side movements of dance may activate and train many of your body’s little support muscles and tendons.

Dancing can help you improve your heart health, lung capacity, circulation, flexibility, strength, balance/coordination, and an overall sense of well-being, making dance good for most everyone. If you can’t just make up some “groovy” dance routine on the fly in your living room, try a dance workout DVD or follow an online video at home (YouTube has an unlimited amount of music videos!)  Like the saying goes, “Dance like no one is watching”, because they’re not! 

It doesn’t even matter if you just jump around to the rhythm flailing your arms about for 20 to 30 minutes to raise your heart rate.  You will get even more healthful benefits if you laugh while doing it!  Dance inspires people to get in shape with something they love to do, which doesn’t feel like dreaded exercise or a bad chore, but fun and exhilarating.

Dancing Even Benefits Memory

Maybe this is why I had a much better memory when I was regularly dancing those pom pom dance routines.  (Or maybe it was because I was 42 years younger??!)  Anyway, a small study (Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, June 15, 2017) suggests that older people who routinely partake in physical exercise may derive benefits in an area of the brain linked to the memory—and dancing has the most profound effect.  The study included 52 seniors who were assigned to either an 18-month weekly course of learning different dance routines, or endurance and flexibility training.  At the end of the study, both groups showed an increase in the hippocampus region of the brain, which plays a key role in memory and learning, and is prone to age-related decline and the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. 

Participants in the dance group had increases in volume in more areas of the hippocampus, and in an area involved in the formation of new memories.  Since none of the study participants were cognitively impaired, we don’t know if dancing lessons dementia. 

The music used in dancing has a Brain-Music Connection.  How is music related to memory?  As we’ve all had that experience from hearing that song associated with a first love or leaving home for good, music is profoundly linked to personal memories. In fact, our brains are hard-wired to connect music with long-term memory. I can hear that song “Afternoon Delight” by the Starland Vocal Band and it can bring me right back to when I was 16 years old or “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner and memories of rocking out in my first year of college come flooding back.  Even for persons with severe dementia, music can tap deep emotional recall.

Positive Social Aspects of Dancing

The social aspect of dancing should not be underestimated either. Dancing often involves other people. Therefore, it can help reduce feelings of isolation. Dancing can enhance our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Other health benefits of dance include:

Stress management– Dancing can be a joyous and fun distraction that can calm anxiety. Dance usually involves music, which can be soothing.

Motivation– Music and dance can also be motivating, inspiring us to shake, rattle and roll (or at least tap our feet to the beat!).

Improved Mood– Dancing can help connect us to happy memories in the past.  It can provide an emotional mood-boost, increasing levels of the feel-good hormone serotonin.

Better posture and balance– Dancing strengthens muscles which can help us stand straighter and reduce fall risk.

Consider Taking a Dance Class

If you love to dance but hate to exercise, and you like social interaction, consider taking a dance class.  Dancing is an enjoyable form of exercise that also provides social interaction.  Adding the social interaction increases the positive well-being aspect of dancing. 

When step or dance aerobics was popular, that was a class I managed to motivate myself to participate in for quite a while.  Nowadays, I think the popular one is Zumba.  I would much rather take something like a Zumba class than lift weights at the gym.  This video states that an hour-long class can burn up to 1000 calories!  Wow, I don’t know if that is an exaggeration by the video maker, but I think I would be laid out on the floor before I made it to the end of that class!  That one would take some working up to!  Speaking of working up to it, I think I’ll get right up off this chair and go dance in my living room to a couple of Taylor Swift songs!