Healthy body, healthy mind!

It’s probably no surprise that a simple Google search will bring up scores of articles and studies showing some pretty compelling links between physical activity and good mental health. Protecting, building and nurturing our mental health is often misunderstood and neglected especially in young people. Yet this section of society is arguably one of the most vulnerable.

The increasing use of social media and smart devices in teenagers despite providing many benefits in terms of developing our social networks also created a few problems. There is lots of evidence to show that they can also act as a platform where children can be targeted in a very public and sustained way by their peers.

Society and the media are constantly reflecting back at us the acceptable norms of the importance of cool, beauty, what size, height and body shape we all should be. Pressures that were perhaps not as visceral and immediate as when I was younger before Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram had yet to take over our lives!

Lack of mental health provision by the NHS, a lack of deep training within our teaching staff and ongoing stigma attached to mental health all contribute to a worrying, but sadly unsurprising increase in mental health issues in teenagers.

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The great news is that there are some very practical steps that can be taken to help prevent and even recover our mental health, ranging from what we put into our bodies through good diet and nutrition to what we do with them!

“Your body is the most amazing instrument you will ever own, use it in every way you can!”

So where does dancing fit in?

It would be easy for me to spout off that dancing fixes all manner of stuff, fortunately there is a large chunk of scientific research to back me, and after all I am biased, I LOVE dancing!

One study of 55 high school girls based in the UK, who were all about 14 years old took a look at the impacts of contemporary dance class intervention. No surprise that here were some pretty dramatic improvements in muscular strength and aerobic fitness. But what really interested me was that both self-esteem and general motivation were a direct by product of the classes (Connolly et al 2011).

But this is just one study right?

So I kept doing a little more research and found a similar study carried out in Sweden of 53 girls aged between 13 to 18 (Duberg et al 2012) who had a background of psychosomatic illness (these are physical conditions or symptoms that are a result of your mental state) they had a range of symptoms from head, back, neck and stomach pain and persistent feelings of stress/anxiety/tiredness and low mood - we’ve all been in this space at some point or other.

The amazing thing with these girls is that they were put through an 8 month dance class intervention programme where they attended dance classes twice a week. They covered everything from Jazz to Contemporary and even produced some of their own choreography. I would have killed for this at my school!

After the 8 months were up, the girls in the dance class experiment completed a questionnaire which allowed them to self-rate their health and the results were stunning. Not only did they out-perform a control group of other girls who hadn’t been in the classes but were the same age, but the improvement felt by the new dancers lasted for up to 12 months after the classes stopped!

The main benefits were not only that they were fitter and healthier, but happier too. The opportunity to come up with their own choreography gave them a sense of ownership and pride. The social aspect of doing dance classes with other like minded individuals created new and lasting friendships, based on trust and mutual interest.

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We should never underestimate the huge power and influence our mind has on our body, and also what the impact of what we do with our body will have on our mind.

So crack a smile, put on your favourite tune and take a few minutes to bust out your best moves.

I personally recommend “dancing like no-one’s watching” at least once a week, and my partner (Rich) likes to do this on a much more frequent basis…. I promise I will post some videos of this the next time he annoys me :)

We have worked hard to make sure we can offer a safe and welcoming place to dance your socks off at the club, regardless of your ability and we can’t wait to meet you.

Happy feet, happy mind - come and find out!

See you soon,

H xx

Our Senior classes for those aged over 12 are on Fridays from 4.30 to 7.30pm covering everything from Contemporary and Commercial to Flexibility and Strength training through dance.

Take a look here: https://www.iamastrid.co.uk/classes

#MentalHealth #Dancing #Health