Benefits of Dance in Mental Health
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Scientific facts show that dance therapy improves the brain networking and transmission of chemicals that help in the stabilization of mental health. Improved transmission of chemicals reduces the chances of neurological and mental health disorders.
https://www.calmsage.com/benefits-of-dance-in-mental-health/
Mental Health Benefits of Dancing
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While the physical benefits of dance have been known for years, there's also growing medical evidence about the mental health benefits. Brain scans show that many parts of the brain light up whenever you dance. That's because dance is an intensive challenge for your brain, requiring a combination of vision, rhythm, balance, coordination and multi-planar movement. And that leads to improved brain cognitive abilities.
https://www.primalplay.com/blog/benefits-of-dance-for-physical-and-mental-health
Mental Benefits of Dance
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https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/mental-benefits-of-dance
Dance and Spiritual Healing
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It's soul food- Above all other forms of exercise, dancing releases the most endorphins. It prompts an emotional release of happiness.
https://www.remixmagazine.com/culture/dancing-good-body-health-soul/
How does dancing affect your spiritual health?
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When we dance for ourselves we invite positive energy into our space and our being, we are able to slip into the present moment where our 'problems' do not exist and we break negative thought patterns whilst releasing pent up stress and worry.
https://livinglifeourway.com/health-and-wellbeing/why-dancing-is-good-for-your-body-health-and-soul/
Dance is an age-old popular form of performing art which is losing its glory and grandeur in this fast-paced modern world. Dance is not only known to connect the body, mind and soul but is a very good form of exercise for your overall well-being. For some, it has become an effective medium to channelise the negative into positive and vent out anger and frustration thereby, keeping their mental peace intact.
It further uplifts the mood and can be an effective stress-buster. With numerous health benefits associated with it, its demand is increasing and people are opting for dance as a medium of fitness.
Dancing Is Food For The Soul
https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Food-Soul-Journal-Notebook/dp/B086L2ZDMG
Dancing in Nature Healing
Eco-somatic dance teaches us how to connect kinaesthetically, imaginatively, spiritually and experientially with the natural world, bringing us more powerfully into our bodies, awakening our aliveness, creativity and wellness.
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Through dance, we can experience a renewed sense of self and a radical change in the way we view our relationship to the environment. For example, different elements offer us different possibilities in movement:
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Working in rocky terrains, brings our awareness to the strength and versatility of bone and the body’s capacity for endurance and stability.
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Our relationship to blue spaces speaks to us of the tides of change, of the 60% water that makes up the average human body, of the rhythmic pulse of our life force and the flow of bodily fluids.
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Plants and trees support us to work with concepts of verticality, the cycle of life and the connection between the earth and sky.
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Air reminds us of our vitality, our breath and the flow of energy required to fill space with full-bodied expression.
Nature offers us a freedom and playfulness reminiscent of childhood and an uninhibited use of body, unapologetically moving through and with the land. Dancer Steve Paxton (2011) believes the natural world teaches us about our bodies and their capacity for movement, empathy and reciprocity.
https://www.derby.ac.uk/blog/what-can-dance-teach-us-about-our-relationship-with-nature/
RESEARCH on DANCING in NATURE
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Positive effects of dancing in natural versus indoor settings: The mediating role of engagement in physical activity.
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Using different environments, we tested how engagement in dancing may lead to positive emotions. We also explored the mechanism responsible for the effect natural environments have on emotions by testing the mediational role of objective engagement in physical activity. Regular dancers (N = 64) participated in a salsa-solo session either in an indoor (dance room) or an outdoor (park) condition. We assessed positive exercise-related emotions and perceived exhaustion before and after the dance session.
We measured objective engagement in physical activity with accelerometers. A beneficial effect of dancing was observed for all variables. The dancers in the park, compared to the indoor group, reported a greater increase in positive emotions after the salsa session. Objective engagement in dancing was much higher among the dancers in the park than in the dance room. Finally, we found that dance has positive psychological effects in natural settings through engagement in physical activity.
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7 Benefits of Dancing Outside
https://www.lnktnk.com/post/7-benefits-of-dancing-outside
Environmental dance
Abstract
Efforts to maintain and protect the environment have recently gained notable attention. Scientists, philosophers, educators and artists, among many others, have initiated positive actions that seek to change the ways that humans relate to the ecosystem. As well, members within the dance community have inadvertently established new movement values that seek to promote and encourage ecological balance. New ideologies in environmental ethics support a non-anthropocentric value theory that recognises the intrinsic value of all species to the function of an ecosystem.
https://www.trainerslibrary.org/dancing-with-the-elements/
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Dance Therapy
Movement and dance are inherent qualities, not only to humans, but to all of nature and the cosmos. From the creation of the universe, to the first heartbeat of the fetus in the womb, rhythm and dance have always existed.
For tens of thousands of years, humans have used dance as an integral part of ritual, prayer, and reaching other states of consciousness, for the purpose of healing, and to facilitate contact with the Divine. It is believed that the soul of a people is woven into the steps of their dances.
Fortunately, dance as ritual and healing is becoming popular once again, as people from many cultures and walks of life have been exposed to some of the many healing properties of dance. Throughout history, most cultures have used dance as a method of accessing the Divine. Dance is often performed as a spiritual experience, either for the self, for others, for community, or for the planet.
Dancing is a popular method of socializing and creating and enhancing relationships. Movement and dance have been used for thousands of centuries around the world specifically for their many healing qualities. The western world is just recently waking up to the understanding of the healing power of dance.
More recently dance is acknowledged for its physical exercise aspect, where the healing comes from the healthy body experience of increasing the heart rate and enhancing cardiovascular endurance, body strength, and flexibility. This is exemplified in the form of Dancercise, also known as Jazzercise, made popular in the 1980s.
History of dance In the beginning...
“Nothing happens until something moves.” Albert Einstein
https://n.b5z.net/i/u/8000224/f/The_Healing_Power_of_Dance_by_Susan_Rueppel.pdf
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9395627/
Dancing is more than fun — it's therapeutic
https://www.aarp.org/health/fitness/info-03-2011/dance-for-health.html
Why do we stop dancing when we grow up? Why do we disconnect and alienate ourselves from the body? It is surprising to me that dance/movement therapy (DMT) is not more popular within the fields of psychology and psychotherapy globally.
https://www.mic.com/life/the-healing-power-of-dance-19455675
Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It’s the rhythm of your life. Jacques d’Amboise
Dance Movement Therapy
Dance/Movement Therapy is the psychotherapeutic use of dance and movement processes to bring about healing and recovery for individuals of all ages and cultural groups
DMT does not emphasize dance technique and it is not about the artistic product (a performance). Rather, it is very much about improvisation, the mobilization and exchange of energy, and the creative, expressive process. DMT clients learn to move in ways that are authentic to how they are feeling and experiencing life, in the context of a supportive therapeutic relationship.
Dance embodies one of our most primal relationships to the universe. It is pre-verbal, beginning before words can be formed. It is innate in children before they possess command over language and is evoked when thoughts or emotions are too powerful for words to contain. It is essential that education provide our children with the developmental benefits and unique learning opportunities that come from organizing movement into the aesthetic experience of dance.” — National Dance Education Organization
https://psychosocialsomatic.com/dance-therapy/
When a group of psychologists from the U.K. visited Rwandan villagers to help heal genocidal trauma through talk therapy, the psychologists were soon after asked to leave.
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For Rwandan genocide survivors, rehashing their traumatic memories to a stranger while sitting in tiny rooms with no sunlight didn’t heal their wounds at all — it just poured salt on them, forcing them to relive the trauma over and over again. That wasn’t their idea of healing.
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They were used to singing and dancing beneath the sun in sync to spirited drumming while surrounded by friends. That’s how they healed from trauma and other mental ailments.
The Rwandans aren’t alone.
For thousands of years and in multiple cultures, dance has been used as a communal, ritualistic, healing force, from the Lakota Sun Dance (Wiwanke Wachipi) to the Sufi whirling dervishes (Sema) to the Vimbuza healing dance of the Tumbuka people in Northern Malawi.
The field of psychology codified the healing power of dance through an Expressive Therapy modality known as Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT). It was developed by American dancer and choreographer Marian Chace way back in 1942.
“The body doesn't lie,” says Dance/Movement and Creative Arts Therapist Nana Koch.
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Please Do Try This At Home
If you’re in a cranky or mildly depressed mood and don’t have the wherewithal to get out of the house for a yoga class or gym workout, you can always just put on some upbeat music and start moving around in your house to get the blood and endorphins flowing.
This will elicit what Gray calls a “state shift” — you switch from a feeling malaise or lassitude to a more upbeat and energized mood within ten or so minutes of dancing. It’s not a treatment for trauma or clinical depression, but it certainly can boost your mood.
“I'd say that [people who want to dance at home] should choose the music that makes them feel good and begin to move their body to the music,” Koch says. “Get a good video to follow along with, anything that you can use to mobilize your body.”
https://www.shondaland.com/live/body/a30111576/psychological-benefits-of-dance-therapy/