Dance your IQ up

Recent studies have shown that dancing can actually make you smarter by keeping certain parts of the brain active. And the more dancing you do, the better it is for your IQ.

A major study into conditions that affect mental activity shows that dancing is the best physical activity to keep your brain in tip top condition and reduce the risks of dementia.

The Bronx Aging Study tested activities that stimulate the mind, like reading and doing crosswords, and ones that stimulate the body, like dancing and swimming, on people aged 75 and over.

Dancing came out as the only physical activity that had a positive impact and as the most beneficial of all activities studied, with a staggering 76% reduction in the risk of dementia for regular dancers.

Because dance requires use of both the short term memory to learn new steps and the long term memory to recall existing steps, it helps to keep the brain working. Added to this is the ability to improvise on those steps and to problem solve whilst dancing and the result is an activity which can improve mental acuity and offer physical fitness.

Dr Joe Verghese, of New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, conducted the Bronx Aging Study which looked at the benefits of mentally and physically stimulating activities. He said: “This was a community based aging study that enrolled nearly 500 adults ages 75 to 85 years residing in the Bronx.

“In this sample, dancing was the only physical activity among the 11 that we examined that was associated with reduced risk of dementia.”

Dr Verghese added: “The precise mechanisms for this effect are not known, but dancing involves mental and physical effort as well as socialisation, all these mechanisms have been reported to reduce dementia risk.”

[For Slimdance]