Why Is Dancing So Good for Your Brain? | Psychology Today
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SHARE TWEET EMAIL 27COMMENTS Do you feel dizzy sometimes when you stand up? Does a fear of falling prevent you from exploring the world more? If you are prone to dizziness, a new study has found that dancing may help improve your balance and make you less dizzy. In September 2013, researchers from Imperial College London reported on specific differences in the brain structure of ballet dancers that may help them avoid feeling dizzy when they perform pirouettes. You don't have to train to become a professional ballet dancer to benefit from some type of dancing. In dancers, both the eye reflexes and their perception of spinning lasted a shorter time than in the rowers. Sensory input evokes low-order reflexes of the cerebellum and higher-order perceptual responses of the cerebrum. Vestibular stimulation elicits vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR) and self-motion perception (e.g., vertigo) whose response durations are normally equal. "It's not useful for a ballet dancer to feel dizzy or off balance. Their brains adapt over years of training to suppress that input. Consequently, the signal going to the brain areas responsible for perception of dizziness in the cerebral cortex is reduced, making dancers resistant to feeling dizzy. If we can target that same brain area or monitor it in patients with chronic dizziness, we can begin to understand how to treat them better." A July 2013 article titled, “The Cognitive Benefits of Movement Reduction: Evidence From Dance Marking” found that dancers can improve the ability to do complex moves by walking through them slowly and encoding the movement with a cue through ‘marking’. Researcher Edward Warburton, a former professional ballet dancer, and colleagues were interested in exploring the "thinking behind the doing of dance." To investigate how marking influences performance, the researchers asked a group of talented dance students to learn two routines: they were asked to practice one routine at performance speed and to practice the other one by marking. Across many of the different techniques and steps, the dancers were judged more highly on the routine that they had practiced with marking—their movements on the marked routine appeared to be more seamless, their sequences more fluid. The researchers conclude that practicing at performance speed didn't allow the dancers to memorize and consolidate the steps as a sequence, thus encumbering their performance. This type of visualization and marking could be used to maximize performance across many fields and areas of life. The Neuroscience of Madonna’s Enduring Success Gesturing Engages All Four Brain Hemispheres The Neuroscience of Speaking With Your Hands 3 Daily Habits That Boost Brainpower Dancing is great for everything physical and mental. An evening dancing is like a vacation. Square dancers are often also round dancers. In round dancing a "cuer", akin to a caller in square dance, cues ballroom maneuvers just as the dancer has an unweighted foot ready for the next move and the music during a dance may change from fox trot to waltz to - whatever. A typical dance evening starts with a half hour of round dance followed by alternating square and rounds. His name and music need to disappear out of respect for the lives he ruined. How anyone can dance to one of his songs without thinking about the fact he sexually abused children is abhorrent to me. So happy he is dead and can no longer ruin innocent lives.