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5. Dancing helps you think strategically (and keeps your mind sharp!)
Do you like crazy dancing chinese overseas asia number data
around the room and your feet move on their own to new songs by Sanah or Nosowska?
Take a few minutes at work to freestyle to your favorite music, and you'll increase your intelligence and decision-making skills.
How is that possible? Dancing, like any physical activity, improves blood flow, oxygenating the gray cells. But that's not all!
A study conducted by Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York on the impact of various activities on maintaining mental sharpness proved that the benefits of dancing go far beyond the benefits of other activities!
The study lasted 21 years and monitored dementia rates in older people, including Alzheimer's patients. It found that intellectual activities are overrated – they have little to medium impact on preserving cognitive abilities. For example, reading books reduces the risk of dementia by 35%, and regularly solving crossword puzzles by 47%.
Interestingly, engaging in writing or participating in discussion groups, as well as almost all the physical activities studied, including cycling, playing golf or swimming, turned out to be insignificant – they did not reduce the susceptibility to dementia in any way.
The only physical activity that turned out to have an impact (and a big one at that!) was dancing. Frequently dancing to music reduced the risk of dementia by a whopping 76%, giving it the best result of all activities, including mental ones (Source: Leisure Activities and the Risk of Dementia in the Elderly )!
Why is this happening? Studies have shown that dance is the most effective at creating new neural pathways because (unlike activities that rely on repetitive movement or intellectual patterns), it requires constant decision-making and strategic thinking!
Additionally, rhythmic contortions connect several brain functions at once – kinesthetic (related to movement control and coordination), cognitive, creative and, undoubtedly, emotional, increasing neural connectivity (Source: Dancing Makes You Smarter, Longer ).
Other benefits include less stress and greater self-confidence.
There is only one condition: to enjoy the positive impact of dancing on your IQ, ability to make good decisions and strategic thinking, you should indulge in creative freestyle, instead of reproducing a practiced routine.