How Dancing Effects Aging in the Brain

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Two very common issues with aging are lack of physical fitness and deterioration of the brain. This article explains how the effects of dancing can improve both of those elements. Many elderly people do not get a lot of exercise, so dancing is a great way to get some exercise. It does not have to be elaborate dancing, but just moving around to music is better than nothing, and it is more fun than other exercises. According to the article, dancing effects the hippocampus, which controls memory and other functions such as learning. Dancing directly effects the hippocampus because it works the learning function of the brain when the elderly are learning the dances. This ties into my psychology of aging class because we spent a lot of time talking about how the brain ages and different ways to help your brain age properly. We also discussed how important it is to exercise while you are young because it will help you be able to move around better and be able to do more things on your own as you get older.


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170825124902.htm

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 17, 2017 at 6:46 AM

    I agree that lack of physical fitness is bad for the brain and can definitely cause deterioration of it. This relates to the Brain Rules book in physiological psychology as well because it discussed how the evolution of humans revolved around being very physical active. I also agree that dancing, learning something, can help with memory and also it is physical movement as well.

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  2. Arden.cofNovember 17, 2017 at 7:13 AM

    Dancing is a great fun way to get exercise in for the elderly, but the key word is exercise. Exercise is what helps strengthen the brain, dancing is a great form of it. Not only do you have the aspect of exercising but you do also have the memory aspect which strengthens the hippocampus. I think you ted this back to class very well.

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