Since childhood, we are pushed by our guardians to develop a hobby. These hobbies help us pass our time in a very constructive manner and prevent us from becoming couch potatoes. Hobbies like dancing are helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. A healthy individual is one who has both a healthy mind as well as a healthy body. Dancing helps to achieve both the aspects. As we all know, our lives do tend to get monotonous after a certain point. In order to deal with this element of ennui, we strongly suggest you to pick up those dancing shoes and sway away. But wait! Do read the amazing benefits that you are going to get from this pleasurable activity.
The top 10 health benefits of dancing are:
1. Increases Stamina
Everybody loves to take rest. A nap is something which nobody detests. There are times when we do not even walk ten steps and we feel that we have just climbed onto the Mount Everest. There are a number of instances when one finds himself or herself groped by lethargy. One tends to get tired very easily. There is always some sort of lack of energy. To deal with this, one can just dance. Dancing increases one’s stamina a lot. Rigorous practice sessions help a dancer to overcome that constant lethargy and feeling tired. It revitalises the dormant you and makes you energetic, thus helping you to evolve as a healthy being.
2. Regulates Weight
Surveys have always been singing praise of dance as an amazing method to burn calories. As we dance, we sweat like a pig but the only difference is that dancers look really beautiful even while sweating, thanks to their flawless dance moves. Dance regulates the metabolism rate of a person’s body. It helps in decreasing weight and regulating it to the perfect level. Aerobics, a very common way used to reduce weight is also a form of dance. Hence, the therapeutic use of dance should always be kept in mind and brought into practice in daily life as much as possible.
3. Increases Muscular Strength
We go through god knows what-not in order to achieve a strong body. We hit the gym. We increase our protein intake. And some people go to the extent of taking steroids! All of us swoon over a perfect muscular body. Dance helps you to attain a body that is fit and has a praiseworthy muscular strength. Dancing tones your muscles. Be it your thighs, abs or arms, through dance, you can tone the muscles of every body part without hurting yourself through machines and medicines. Dancing thus helps in developing strong muscles and increases your core inner strength.
4. Reduces Stress
A thing which you are passionate about is bound to make you feel at peace with yourself. Dancing is a phenomenal stress buster. As you sway your arms and legs, you sway away your tensions and dilemmas too. Dancing takes you to an ethereal world of mental calmness and provides you with great relief from your otherwise hectic lifestyle. And a sound mind is, as we all know, a sign of a healthy body.
5. Flat Abs
Belly dancing is one form of dance that is just beautiful to watch and amazing to perform. This form of dance is dependant chiefly on dancer’s abdomen muscles. A dancer has to have a strong upper body in order to dance flawlessly. Obviously, one does not have a strong tummy from the very beginning. And this is where dance comes to your rescue. Through dance, you can strengthen your abs. Gorgeous looking flat abs are something that people die for. Be it contemporary or any Latin American dance form, with consistent practice, one can easily achieve flat abs and a strong body.
6. Increases Flexibility
We all have tried at least once in our lives to touch our thumbs to the back of our palm creating an arch. Those who can twist their arms or legs in a fascinating fashion are everybody’s object of envy. But do not worry! If you dance then there should be no problem for you in having a flexible body. Dancing helps to loosen the hitherto tight muscles. It relaxes your body. The ease with which a dancer moves all the parts of body in all sorts of directions is simply inspiring. It is absolutely a delight to watch. Dance moves increase the flexibility of a person’s body to its almost optimum level.
7. Improves Body Posture
However sad this fact is but we, as a world, are obsessed with exterior forms of beauty that confirm to the set norms and conventions of society. We always want to look our best. One important thing in enhancing one’s personality is one’s body posture. Nobody likes to date a person who walks in a clumsy manner, always slouching. Luckily, dancers do not have to worry about their postures. By dancing, one’s body is trained to be in a manner that is perfect and it improves the posture automatically over time. The “head straight-chin up-shoulders back” instruction seems to go deep into the very veins of a dancer, making him/her a person with a beautiful body frame. Having a good posture also helps to reduce spinal problems that can be very troublesome.
8. Increases appetite
You must have a friend or someone in your acquaintance that eats like a bird. Or even if you do not have one, you surely must have heard of such category of people. These kinds of people naturally eat so less that if you go out for a dinner with them, you will be just left ashamed and flabbergasted. However, due to this, such people also tend to get fewer nutrients from the limited quantity of food that they consume. In order to balance their diet, one can dance and see the magic that it brings along with it. As one dances, one’s appetite also increases due to the loss of energy that takes place. This loss needs to be compensated in the form of nutritious food, thereby making the person healthier than before with a stable diet.
9. Builds Confidence
A self reliant attitude is needed to be called a healthy individual. Dancing helps one to achieve a healthy body in numerous ways. It also helps to achieve a healthy inner framework. As one performs in front of an audience or even generally in a discotheque for that matter, the person’s confidence level definitely shoots up. And if his/her dance moves are appreciated by the crowd present, then it can do wonders to the person’s self-esteem. In this manner, dance proves to be a great confidence booster.
10. Improves Memory
When we perform on a stage, apart from the common stage fright, we are faced with another sort of fear that is so severe that we almost tend to faint out of nervousness. This fear is that of forgetting the dance steps. Somehow, we develop this cynical attitude that compels us to be at our pessimist best and make us think that we are definitely going to do 1 on 8 and 8 on 1. But as one keeps practicing, one tends to get a stronghold of the steps. As time passes by, we are able to synchronise the steps with beats and rhythm and keep them intact in our “mind castles” clearly. This way, you can easily improve your memory and sharpen your skills at dancing at the same time.
This summer vacation, not only children but parents can take up dance as a recreational activity. It will help in keeping fit and active, and also boost their confidence.
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