'Dance enables you to find yourself and lose yourself at the same time.'
When was the last time you danced your heart out?
Recently? In the living room when alone at home? Or before lockdown with your gang in the club?
Whenever you’ve danced, you must've felt this huge rush of joy that made you forget about all the tensions and enter a stage of euphoria. You might have forgotten about all your stresses and trying to live in the moment, at least for a while. You must have done a short and quick celebration dance, when you completed all your assignments or when you tried a new recipe and it came out to be unexpectedly successful. All these situations make us happy from within.
So, am I trying to relate dance with mental health? Hell yeah, it even develops the human brain. No wonder Michael Jackson was able to do numerous spins without feeling dizzy, and these effects have nothing to do with being a professionally trained dancer. Anyone who dances can experience it. Even your easiest go-to dance moves describe you more than you think. When you dance, your body releases endorphins which trigger good vibes and positivity. When we find the right music that goes with our mood in that moment, we all have faced that urge, that little urge to groove along the beats. Listening to music increases our dopamine levels, which leads us to have spontaneous body movements, and as we know, dopamine and endorphins are happy hormones, and we experience a lift in our moods.
If you don't dance on a normal basis, you can probably add a little dance sequence in your daily workout routine and see the effects yourself.
As for me, I dance every single day but not for a performance or any specific purpose, just as something that makes me feel woke and active.
I developed this habit in my early teens. I used to lock myself in my room and danced until someone knocked at my door. just to keep a check on me, of course. During that time my family was going through some issues and I was told not to discuss these matters with any outsider because family issues were supposed to stay in the family and not leaked out. Not being able to express my thoughts with anyone used to make me feel alone, not that I couldn’t talk to my parents about it, I just didn’t want them to be concerned about me during that time. So, I used to keep my sad thoughts inside me. But soon enough I felt that negativity was building inside me and it was high time I let it all out. So, weirdly enough, I started to dance passionately, I used to go for dance classes that I wasn’t very interested into it until this time. I used to imagine an audience watching me express my mind to them in the form of dance, it sounds weird but it was my guilty pleasure. I started dancing every night while everyone was asleep. There were days that I wouldn’t sleep at all. But as a matter of fact, I did overcome my negative thoughts and the feeling of not being able to express with time.
Dance is something we are all born with, time decides how it interests us, but irrespective of that, we never stop dancing.
These benefits are not just theoretical. These aspects have been deeply researched and led to the concept of Dance/ Movement therapy (DMT). It has huge impacts on quality of life and stress management. It may involve talking, different types of music or no music at all. DMT is a blend of keeping mental health or physical fitness in check.
New ways of activities may produce new ways of feeling and perceiving the world.
Our posture and movements have the power to improve our mental states, to evoke repressed memories, to release spontaneity and creativity and to reorganise our brains.
Feeling low? Just dance it out. It won’t be a solution to all your problems, but it might make you feel better.
Keep dancing!
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