5 Interesting Psychological Studies Involving Dancing
Dancing can have a lot of physical benefits. It’s a great way to get regular exercise. You can dance with your spouse or significant other around the house or you can go out regularly for dancing get togethers. However you decide to dance, it’s a great way to keep your body in top form. You’ll work many parts of your body including your lower limbs and core. It can also improve your athletic ability and coordination.
But that’s not all the benefits of dancing. There are also mental benefits. And that’s what we’re looking at today. Believe it or not, there have been a number of interesting studies into the impact dancing has on humans. Here are some of the most interesting psychological studies and their findings as it relates to dancing.
1. Dancing Improves Your Brain
In this post, there are a number of studies cited about how dancing can improve the brain in a number of different ways. One finding uses Michael Jackson and his fluid spinning as an example. With practice, Jackson was able to train his mind to handle the intense spinning so he wouldn’t get dizzy or lose balance.
In another study, it was found that simply doing slow motion practice can improve performance. It’s why NFL teams often have walkthroughs of plays and why golfers take slow motion practice swings.
2. Mental Practice Can Lead To Improved Dancing
You can practice at full speed and slow speed to improve as a dancer, but you can also practice mentally. That was the finding in one study. It’s similar to going in slow motion speed, but you can even simply move your body just a little while focusing on the moves in your head. You can learn entire routines this way. And you can do it from anywhere — even while riding the bus or while sitting in a chair at home.
3. The Evolution Of Human Dance May Have Been A Mistake
Think about how important dancing is to the human race. We dance for pleasure. We dance for better physical fitness. We dance for all kinds of reasons and yet one study finds that the entire evolution of human dance may have been a mistake.
Some animals in the world do not have dancing as part of their culture. It’s unique to humans and a few other animals that have close connections between auditory and motor skills. It’s one of the happy evolutions of nature because dancing has become so important to our culture.
4. Dancers Can Learn Routines In Different Ways
Earlier we saw that dancers can learn how to dance at full speed, half speed and even in their minds. Another interesting extension of those findings is the finding that different people can learn to dance in different ways.
In the finding, a dance instructor helped students to learn while watching dancing by giving them visual cues. It’s yet another way for people to learn dancing and shows that you don’t need to learn dancing like everyone else. If you’re struggling to pick up a routine you can often find a way to learn it that suits your unique ability to pick up routines.
5. Girls Under Age 16 Have The Most Dancing Confidence
And finally we have a study that reveals the different confidence levels people have when it comes to dancing. We all know people that are unafraid to get out on the floor to strut their stuff. And we all know others that are deathly afraid to get on the dance floor no matter the circumstances.
It turns out that girls under the age of 16 have the most confidence in their dancing abilities whether they truly are good dancers or not.
But that doesn’t mean you have to be a girl to enjoy dancing. You can shake your moneymaker no matter your background. All it takes is a little practice to free yourself to enjoy one of the great mistakes of human evolution.
Final Thoughts
It’s always interesting to see how the human brain works. And when it comes to dance it seems that dancing has a great impact on the brain and how we interact with each other. We’re glad that dancing has evolved in the human world and we think it will continue to evolve over time. It’s something that remains important to how we interact both with ourselves and with each other.
Photo: Allan Ajifo
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