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Episode Attribution
Sonia Kyriacou. (Host). (2021, March 17). The benefits of dance! [Audio podcast episode]. In Choreograph Your Life with Sonia Kyriacou. Parcast. http://soniakyriacou.com/sonia-kyriacou-the-benefits-of-dance/

TRANSCRIPT

Voiceover 0:05
Welcome to the choreograph your life Podcast, where we dig deep into the journey of people’s pursuit of their passion for dance. Join us as our host and guests discuss their dance journeys, the business of dance obstacles they face, and even lessons learned along the way. Now, here’s your host, Sonia Kyriacou.

Sonia Kyriacou 0:33
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my podcast. I hope you’re all doing amazing, I hope you’re feeling more optimistic as we get through this one year checkpoint of the pandemic. Needless to say, the stress levels have gone out of control over the top just too much, right? I think you might, you might agree with me. All the more reason I want to talk about the benefits of dance today. Okay, so dance is healing dance is amazing for lowering stress, and many, many other benefits. So I want to give you a list of benefits that dance brings into people’s lives. And it has done so for myself as well. And let’s see if there’s any that you can identify with. So first and foremost, have more fun, like who doesn’t want to have more fun, right? As we grow up, and we become adults, it tends to be one of these things that gets put aside, like we become serious and responsible. And we focus on work. And, you know, maybe we start having kids and we own a home. And there’s all kinds of things that take over. And we may find ourselves with literally almost never having any fun anymore. So fun is the key to staying happy to staying young and to just stay in touch with your inner child, right. So this is an important benefit, having more fun, going out and dancing. Of course, if we know how to dance, we are more probably more apt to go out and practice it. And so this will increase your joy and your fun. Become more confident! This is a big one. definitely definitely was a big one. For me. I overcame my shyness thanks to dance. So becoming more confident is a big one for benefits of dance. Overcome shyness. shyness is a big one for a lot of people, we might have areas of our lives that we feel super confident and others that we’re just like, oh, gosh, I’m shy. And that’s okay. Dancing will definitely help you work on that. Another big benefit from dancing is meeting new friends. I know for a fact that when you meet people that share the same hobby and the same passion, same love, you tend to become friends and bond and you know, possibly build lifelong friendships. So this is a huge one, when it comes to dance. Next is improving self image. I think this is a big one. Sometimes how we feel about ourselves is how we see ourselves. So we might look in the mirror and maybe what is looking back at us is beautiful, but we may not recognize it because we don’t feel that way. So that’s one of the powerful benefits of dance. It makes you feel beautiful. The next one become the life of the party. I mean, I personally love laughing I love having fun. I love making people laugh. And yes, dancing definitely helped me put myself out there and not be afraid of looking a bit monkeyish. You know what I mean? Let’s see what’s next on my list. So find a boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse ouuuuu danananam Okay, so let’s clear this up. And there’s a bit of a stigma you know, people think like, you go a Latin dance and all you want is to meet someone. This is not necessarily true for everyone that does Salsa, Bachata, and all these beautiful couple dances. It could be a benefit for some and that’s okay. I mean, it’s it is a great way to meet people like minded people, and it is a great way to get closer to someone easily. So knock it It may not be for you. But yes, I, I mean, I’m living proof I met my husband through dancing. So there you go.

Next to relieve loneliness. But having gone through COVID a lot of people have been isolated not everyone lives with a family or friends. There’s a lot of people that live alone and loneliness is a serious problem. And it’s not to be taken lightly. So yes, dancing will definitely help relieve loneliness. Become more popular or be recognized as a good dancer. So as I mentioned before, sometimes you kind of find your superpower through dance, right? Maybe you’re generally shy or you come you know you have to be serious for the for your job and you know, you have to behave a certain way because you are a mom or a dad but then when you go dance you know you can be you you could be the life of the party, you could be just a dancer, just a person. And so being recognized feels good. Another one, um, relieves stress and anxiety. So I started off by saying that we have lived through major stress this past year. And dancing is definitely a stress relief. You listen to the music, you coordinate your, your movements to the music, you align. And there’s this beautiful meeting of body, mind and spirit. And this alone makes you breathe differently makes you feel good. And your troubles go out the window, right? So who doesn’t want that, and it’s a relief and anxiety reducer. Self improvement, or discovering a hobby is another big benefit of dancing, we all get caught up in doing doing doing and it always seems to feel like we’re serving a purpose or other people. And that’s great. But sometimes, you want to do something that’s just for you. And dancing certainly feels that way. It feels like something that you’re focused on internally. And not just for your body, but how you feel about yourself. And so this is rewarding, right? It gives you it’s self love. And and this is important. Next is stay in shape and lose weight or gain weight, right? Depends we tend to talk about people wanting to lose weight, but there are also people out there that need to put on muscle because they don’t feel they may want to add weight, right. So both are concerns for people. So staying in shape, super, super important for overall health, and especially as a stress reducer. Improving posture and balance…also very important. I know that I tend to tell my students, squeeze the shoulder blades open the chest, stand up tall, you gain that extra inch of height when you hold yourself correctly. And and this looks good and feels good, your breath flows easier. The spinal fluid moves where it’s supposed to move. And this is the power of using good posture and balance. Next on my list is looking more elegant or poised. Okay, so sometimes dancing, especially I would say ballroom dancing has this side of of it where you feel that you know you’re kind of I don’t want to say in the old times, but I mean there’s a grace and and a beautiful way to ask someone to dance right. We take it for granted, we kind of lost this in in our quick culture, our digital culture, I think it’s important to remember that it is such a beautiful feeling to have someone ask you to dance in such a polite manner and puts out their hand and shows you this open hand like would you like to have this dance? I personally feel like a princess when someone asked me to dance in this manner. So I believe you know grace, poise and elegance are important and it feeds into the romance as well. We can also look at dancing in a way to challenge ourselves example some people want to do shows or competitions. And this is a great way to kind of let’s say have a deadline, a lot of us tend to kick our own butts when we know that we’re going to have a test and exam a performance, some type of deadline that would push us to work harder and to look forward to something. So this is another way to improve your dancing. And it’s also a way for you to actually reach a goal and and get that feeling that satisfaction feeling once you get there. And of course, I cannot say enough about how healthy dancing makes you and overall just a happier person a better version of yourself. So a lot of these benefits are available to everyone and some might resonate more with you than others. But at the end of the day, I hope that this has inspired you to get dancing, you know sign up for a dance class at your local dance studio and just enjoy. Alright guys, so until the next episode, let’s dance!

Voiceover 9:22
Thanks for listening. Find Sonia on Instagram at SONIAKYRI and on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter at Sonia Kyriacou. Check back weekly for new episodes. Until the next time, keep dancing.