Ballroom Dancing Effects
Ballroom dancing is an excellent way to get exercise as well as to meet other people who have a mutual interest. If you and your partner take a class tonight, it's a way to reconnect with someone that you care about, because ballroom dancing requires being a couple and dancing in close proximity. Furthermore, the social aspect of ballroom dancing -- the development of new friendships and relationships -- is an important effect of this activity.
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Using Your Brain
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When you ballroom dance, you use powerful brain activity. You use your brain to think and to respond to your partner. When you use your brain, you are protecting it from disease, such as Alzheimer's. Stimulating your brain keeps brain cells healthy. Dancing makes you smarter because you are required to use your brain.
According to the "New England Journal of Medicine" and lead researcher Joe Verghese, M.D., who is an assistant professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, ballroom dancing helps get your mental muscles responsive and supple. You have to listen to the music and move accordingly. You must remember steps and you must keep your partner and his movements in mind.
Relieving Stress
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Anytime you exercise, you relieve stress. Everyone benefits when their stress level is reduced. Ongoing stress can lead to health issues. When you dance, you work up a sweat and you are focused on the dance and on your partner, which is a good escape from the stresses that you encounter in your daily life.
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Gaining Confidence
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Learning how to do something new and as challenging as ballroom dancing improves self-esteem and self-confidence.
The Disabled
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Even those confined to wheelchairs can take part in ballroom dancing via wheelchair dancing. The individual in the wheelchair dances with an able-bodied partner. This helps the wheelchair bound person improve and maintain his balance, coordination, range of motion, flexibility and it helps with breathing control, according to Absolutedancesport.com.
The Importance of Touch
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Ballroom dancing involves touch, which can be very therapeutic for someone who is ill or who feels isolated. The human touch is healing. All humans need and are responsive to touch. When you ballroom dance you have to touch. Ballroom dancing is a shared responsibility, notes Alexandertechnique.com. It involves touching, sight, momentum, kinesthetic awareness and momentum.
Friendly Stress
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The "friendly stress" of ballroom dancing keeps your mind engaged, works out your muscles and keeps your body toned, according to world dance-sport champion Ednah Ledesma. Ballroom dancing burns approximately 184 calories an hour.
Competitive
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If you dance competitively, you learn about sportsmanship, performance skills, how to communicate better with your partner and how to have a whole lot of fun. Ballroom dancing is recognized as a social sport.
Your Body
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Through ballroom dancing you will become more graceful and rhythmic and have a better sense of your body. This type of dancing also improves body alignment and posture and strengthens your body core and abdominal muscles, notes Ballroomdanceacademy.com. It's also good for your heart and all the other muscles in your body.
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References
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