Turning 40 is a major milestone for most people, it is considered as a midpoint and signifies a new life season full of transitions. This is a decade where we strive to be more confident in ourselves, comfortable in our skin and more put together in our life overall compared to our 20’s and 30’s. 

We can’t deny it: as time passes and your body changes. Though each of us is a unique specimen and the aging process will touch each of us differently. As you grow older you will experience a decline in mental and physical fitness and your aging process will speed up if you neglect to take care of your body. But you have the power to slow aging and prolong your youth. If you use anti-aging strategies like a properly balanced diet and physical routine like dancing you’ll be able to reverse the aging process greatly and keep your body and brain young.

Studies have proven that if you remain active throughout your senior years, and engage in activities that will continually challenge you like dancing, you can not only prevent the mental and physical decline associated with aging but also slow down the effects of aging in your brain. Isn’t that amazing? So if you want to keep you, your body and mind young, dancing is the fun, challenging and perfect way to do it! 

Why Square Dancing is a Great Workout and Beneficial to Your Health:

Dancing Makes You Smarter

Unlike traditional fitness routines, square dancing is continuously varied and challenges your mind because you're not doing the same thing over and over again. Research has shown that dancing is the best form of physical activity for keeping the brain active. Dancing improves your memory by memorizing and recalling steps, routines, and dance patterns, making it a great mental exercise for your brain. The greatest benefit is that increasing mental exercise keeps your mind young, quick, alert and open. When you take dance lessons, you’ll learn new things, incorporate new movements to a piece of choreography, or maybe try different styles each week. It never gets boring and your brain appreciates that. Dancing inspires people to get in shape with something they love to do, which doesn’t feel like a boring exercise or a bad chore, but fun and exhilarating as moving to the music will stimulate your senses of sight, sound, and touch.  

Dancing Keeps You Trim

Dancing burns calories while improving your stamina! Nick Smeeton a lecturer in the University of Brighton in the UK says that “Dancing demands a lot of energy outputs because it involves movements in all directions.” He added that while running, swimming and other propulsive forms of physical activity use rhythm and momentum to keep you moving, “there is a lot of accelerating and decelerating in dancing, which the body is less able to do in an energy-efficient way,” Smeeton added. When you dance, you can expend more than 300 calories every half hour, which meets or exceeds the amount of energy you burn during an easy run or swim. Even a relatively tame form of dance will burn about the same number of calories as cycling, according to the report from the University of Brighton (1).

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Dancing Makes Your Bones Stronger and Lubricate Joints

The impact of movement and dancing actually helps in strengthening your bones, aiding in the prevention of osteoporosis for both men and women. The moving of joints keeps them lubricated and mobile also helping in the prevention of arthritis.

Dancing Is The Best Way To Improve Your Balance And Feel Years Younger

Balance is super important as you get older. Balancing in one position may be easy but balancing in different types of positions involved in dancing is difficult. When you dance you’ll master the ability to balance yourself in different positions which will aid in your coordination and reflexes. Dancing also helps to improve the connection of your body and mind which helps our central nervous system.

Dancing Helps Builds Friendships

Dancing brings people together. It encouraged social bonding and it can help you build great friendships as it is both entertaining and recreational. It creates a social life for you and gives you the opportunity to make new friends. You can walk into a dance class not knowing another soul and quickly discover that dancing is a wonderful way of making new friends that make you laugh and support you as you learn from others.

Dancing Reduce Stress And Increase Energy

Depending on the style you choose, a dance class will always lift your mood and gives you a feeling of happiness by raising your endorphin levels. This will help heal your stress and depression, our immune system’s biggest enemies! Dancing helps establish your self-confidence and self-discipline and will give you a sense of well-being by improving the harmony between your mind and body.

 

Summary

Square dancing is really a great way to add a little fun to your daily routine, not only does it feel good to your body and soul, it keeps you and your body young. Research shows that dancing not only boosts your overall happiness but certain types of dance like square dancing not only keep you and your body young but can actually add ten years to your life. 

In 1996 Dr. Arron Blackburn completed a study that showed that Square dancing will add ten years to your life. He states that "It’s clear that square dancing is the perfect exercise. It combines all the positive aspects of intense physical activity with none of the negative elements”(2). Physical examinations of both female and male square dancers indicated that they could expect to live well into their 80’s. In square dancing when you’re not moving, you’re clapping hands or tapping feet, which all burn calories contribute to long term fitness. 

So what are you waiting for? Get your dancing shoes on and start clapping your hands and tapping your feet! While maintaining a healthy diet helps, get square dancing for a younger-looking and healthier you. 

References:

1. https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14163029.dancing-burns-more-calories-than-running-and-makes-you-happier/

2. https://waynedalenews.com/2001/10/focus-on-health3003/