Dance Your Way to Happiness!

    I have heard of lots of ways that movement is good for you, but I was surprised at this new study that compared all kind of ways to deal with depression. Guess what? They found that dancing out ranked all the other options including medication for depression. "

Dancing might be one of the most effective ways of treating depression – even more effective than medication, a study has found.

The review of research, published in the BMJ, looked at 218 studies covering 14,000 individuals, and found that exercise led to moderate improvements in depression symptoms. The best results were seen in dancing, which was more effective at treating depression than other forms of exercise, including walking, jogging, tai chi, yoga and weight training."

    Feeling a little down? Try movement. Have birth doula clients who are depressed? Turn on the music and get up and dance with them. Ever thought of having it as part of your prenatal practice for labor? "The Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health found that in hospitals that did not restrict food or drink in normal labor and where the women spent at least half of active labor walking, chances of having forceps or vacuum-assisted births or cesarean section births decreased by half (Albers et al., 1997)."

This gives me a new view. Maybe dancing in the old days past had more of a benefit to the people than we realized. 

Here are some articles about this: 

Future Care Capital

Independent Co

National Library of Medicine