Back in June, a branch of the Kitchener Public Library invited me to give an interactive presentation for members of their Active Adults 55+ group. The session was called “Move Your Mind: The Cognitive Benefits of Dance.” Weaving together elements of a lecture on the cognitive benefits and opportunities to dance, I led these adults through an experience of dance. We laughed – a lot – and leaned into the idea that dancing badly is better than not dancing. I am writing this blog post now because I want others in my studio circle to have access to this knowledge. Admittedly, this is a cursory overview and there are many more layers and areas not covered here; but it is a start, and a challenge for you to move your mind!
First and foremost, despite what the Greek philosophers and later Christian theologians might have us believe, the brain and the body are not two separate entities. Our brains and our bodies are interwoven, exchanging information and process. This is most evident in the process of infant development. As a newborn baby, even before we have conscious process, our bodies feed information to, and shape our brains. Think about being held by your parents. Being fed, clothed changed. All of this is sensory information that changes our brains. And it all happens outside of our consciousness. As infants grow, they begin to articulate move their heads, their bums, they start to wiggle their spines. They discover their arms, their legs, how to work them together. They start to cross the midline, reaching for things. Through all of these developmental stages, movement is shaping the brain, which in turn learns to manage the body. This neurodevelopmental process is why dance classes at Kaleidoscope Irish Dance Studio begin with the BrainDance. These movement patterns are part of an infant’s early growth, but they also help to reshape adult brains! If you’d like to try it out for yourself, check out this narrated Guided Warm Up by Kate Kuper.
There are many benefits to dance. Physical benefits are often the most quickly acknowledged: improved balance, increased lower body muscular strength, faster and more stable walking, improved cardiovascular fitness. There are social and benefits as well, especially when we engage in social dancing like céilí and partner dancing: increased motivation; improved mood; opportunities to socialize in and out of dance class as in you can make more friends! And the cognitive benefits, which I argue help us live better lives overall: improved attention, faster reaction times, improved memory, and the neural protection to help slow mental decline and dementia. In short, dancing helps to build stronger bodies and stronger brains. A word of caution – while I am a huge proponent of the benefits of dance, it is not a cure-all, but it can have a great deal of benefit and improve people’s lives!
Dance consistently asks us to learn new things, and when we learn new choreography (dance steps) our brain has to send out signals to our various muscles to perform the action required for that dance. The more we do those actions, the more those synapses that fire along the neural pathways will start to wire together; thereby creating a mental short cut. Dancing helps to rewire our brain. These pathways provide protection so that if ever a part of our brains is damaged, we have other neural pathways for the brain to employ. This is where repetition of dances, paired with opportunities for learning new dances creates stronger connections in the brain.
Draw an imaginary line down the middle of your body. Reach across your body – touch your knee or shoulder, come back to centre, now do the other side. You have just crossed the midline! The brain is made up of two lobes – the right brain and the left brain, and these two lobes are connected by the corpus collosum, which acts as a communication centre between these two halves. The more you cross the midline, the better your fine motor skills will be. This is also an essential crossing for reading. And in order to cross the midline, you have to have enough core strength to support the movement to reach across. Occupational therapists work on this critical skill with children all the time. Gross motor skills are essential for many of the tasks we expect them – and ourselves as adults – to do. If a person lacks the ability to cross the midline, this will have a direct effect on their working memory, it will affect their ability to complete activities of daily living, such as getting dressed or writing.
The vestibular system controls our sense of balance. It is located in the inner ear and is essential for postural control, muscle tone, spatial orientation, alertness, and eye movements. Postural control is part of maintaining balance and without balance we would not be able to roll over, sit up, or walk. When the ground is uneven, or going up stairs, we rely on our vestibular system to keep us upright. Our vestibular system also helps us to know where we are in space – lying down, sitting, standing. Are we high up? Are we on an incline or flat surface? It’s always on alert to tell us where we are. It is also responsible for good control of our eye movements, all of which are essential for reading! A strong vestibular system allows us to scan the page, left to right, from top to bottom and not skip around the page. One way to exercise your vestibular system is by turning. Even if you suffer from motion sickness or get super dizzy, you can work to improve your vestibular system. Start slowly and in small increments. Overtime, in most cases, you will see improvement.
Lastly, I want to talk about the largest organ on our bodies: the skin. It is responsible for a large number of the sensory data sent to the brain and through touch (tactile stimulation) it helps to promote positive feelings, stimulate the brain, promote well-being, and enable functional abilities. Touch is important, especially in partnership with vestibular and proprioceptive input. Some tactile inputs could include molding dough or putty, brushing hair, or a gentle hand massage. Touch can help to create meaningful connections. It can help to alleviate stress – think about how good it feels to be on the receiving end of a long hug! A friend of mine has a granddaughter who insists on every hug lasting for at least 20 seconds. She counts them! Those hugs have the power to soften distress and promote cognitive engagement. In the case of céilí or social dance, we hold hands with our partners and this alone can help us to belong.
Kaleidoscope Irish Dance and Movement Studio offers many ways to move your mind! And if céilí or social dancing is of particular interest to you, join our Céilí Club on Wednesdays at 7pm.