Does dancing burn more fuel than running? Yes, more than walking, running or swimming, dancing helps you burn more calories.
- Dancing is fun and has positive effects on your body, as it involves voluntary movements in all directions
- Boosts energy, improves mood, flexibility, endurance and strength, promotes socializing and builds relationships
- Dancing lowers stress and anxiety and improves mental health in about 98% of dancers
Health Benefits of Dancing
Dancing is one of the greatest pleasures. It comes with music, beats, and synced motions to express the unsaid emotions. Whether it’s a party or just spending time with yourself, there is always an undeniably irresistible reason behind moving to a good beat. While dancing is just plain fun and moving, there are some good reasons to do it every day.Increases the Calorie Burning
- Walking burn: 100 to 200 calories in 30 mins
- Dancing burn: 200 to 400 calories in 30 mins
- Running burn: 200 to 400 calories in 30 mins
- Swimming burn: 200 to 250 calories in 30 mins
- Cycling burn: 200 to 300 calories in 30 mins
Even a gentle or simply coordinated movement for 30 minutes can burn the same number of calories as swimming or cycling.
On the internet, there is a popular saying that if running is like driving on a freeway, dancing is more like driving through a bustling city.
Dance has such great results because it involves voluntary movements in all directions. In running, walking, or swimming, there is constantly an accelerating force; yet, in dancing, there is always synchronized deceleration and acceleration.
Positive Impact on Flexibility, Endurance and Strength
A comparative study on Balance & Flexibility between Dancers and Non-Dancers shows that dance has put a positive impact on fitness variables balance and flexibility.
Mood and Mind Benefits
Dancing, like any other physical activity, appears to improve your mood and mental wellness. According to a UCLA health research study published in 2021, free-flowing dancing motions resulted in good mental health effects for individuals who chose to dance.
A total of 1,000 patients suffering from anxiety, depression, and trauma took part in the study. Almost 98 percent of dancers’ mental health improved after they practiced and let their bodies move with the flow.
Dancing helps with improved energy, a buoyed mood, and lowered stress.
Influence on the White Matter of the Brain
A study published in the journal Frontiers in Ageing Neuroscience compared the effects of walking, stretching, and dancing on the white matter of aging brains. The study connected dancing to increased ’white matter’ integrity in elderly people’s brains.
White matter in your brain is made up of connective tissues that might deteriorate over time. The deterioration causes issues with processing speed, reasoning, and remembering.
Unlike walking and stretching, the synchronized movements of dance-choreography must be memorized via your body and mind. The white matter of elderly people who participated in dance improved after 6 weeks of hard choreography.
Psychological Benefits of Dance
A dance may do great things for your psychology. For many years and decades, therapists have recommended dancing as an excellent treatment for social anxiety and fear of speaking in public.
The rationale for proposing dancing is to relax before performing a backflip in front of strangers. If you can perform a backflip in front of an audience, you will be less self-conscious when it comes to public speaking.
Dance promotes socializing and building relationships with others. The synchronized movements you do with others in a dance class blur the lines and allow you to connect with your fellow dancers.
Boosts Physical Connectivity
Last but not least, dancing improves physical connectedness. When it comes to dancing with a partner, there is always a touch factor that brings distinct benefits. Holding hands, touching waists, and other dancing gestures to help maintain and improve a human-to-human physical connection.
Salsa’s sensuous touch or ball dance’s romanticism, each part relieves tension and anxiety and aids in the maintenance of good relationships.
Put all of this together, and there is nothing that can’t persuade you to put on your dancing shoes.
Source-IANS