So, you’ve got work to finish, children to drop off at hockey practice, and still need to find time to cook dinner. And then the sink backs up. Sound familiar?
If you’re like most people, the situation above would likely generate a large amount of that unpleasant reaction known as stress. While you might be tempted to just pop some Prozac or hop on a flight to the Caribbean, there’s actually a lot of evidence that points to dancing as an effective stress-reliever. The following is my top 5 ways that dancing relieves stress.
1. Flushing Body Toxins
Stress isn’t just some nameless emotion - it’s a physiological reaction that takes place in your body, in the form of hormones like cortisol, that are released in response to negative stimuli and get stored in your body. Dancing relieves stress, literally, by flushing out these and other waste chemicals that can build up in your body. Don’t be surprised if you wind up with fewer muscle aches and colds as well.
2. Get a ‘Hormone High’
Dancing replaces those stress-hormones we mentioned earlier with pleasure hormones like endorphins and serotonin. Dancing relieves stress with these feel-good compounds, which counter the mental effects of stress by helping you view normally stressful things in a more positive light. Stepped in mud? You’ve got new brown shoes! It feels rather like this:
3. A Welcome Distraction
Dancing relieves stress by helping you distance yourself from stressful events in your life, allowing your brain to recharge and face the day with renewed vigour. How does it do this? By keeping you so busy focusing on your movement, the music, and your partner that you can’t think about anything else! I can list off a dozen people I know who can’t ‘turn off’ their brains, unless they’re spinning to their favourite waltz.
4. Meditation in Motion
While you are holding stressful events at arms-length, your also getting a little more in touch with your body. A big part of how dancing relieves stress is by helping you become more aware of where your body holds stress in the form of muscle tension, and how to release it.
5. Express Yourself!
Stress often builds up in the body because we don’t get enough opportunities to express our stressful feelings. It might seem strange, but virtually all of us know how great it feels to ‘get something off our chest’ by writing in a diary or ranting to a friend. Dancing provides a great way to blow off steam by giving us a more cathartic way to convey our emotions. As a very talented instructor I know puts it: ‘Dance your day!’
Sources:
American Dance Slo
Better Your Health
Pysch Central