The Brain On Dance/Movement
“Dance/Movement Therapy? What is that? It sounds pretty hokey and woowoo if you ask me!” -This is a response I once got from someone after I shared that I am a Dance/Movement Therapist. What this person was saying was that it was hard to see the connection between how dance or movement, specifically the two combined, could promote treatment for mental health. This is a great topic however, because there is specifically a lot of scientific research that supports how dance/movement directly connects to the human psyche and emotional experience.
Quick Crash Course on the Brain, because guess what?! If you REALLY want to get a work-out in, movement and dance actually activates all parts of the brain without a complete overload! So let’s break this down to the a specific exploration of how dance also positively affects mental health.
Frontal Lobe: Responsible for personality, decision making and movement
Authentic Movement allows for a celebration of each person’s individual personality. No one person’s movement will be the same. We all move, exist and experience differently. Rather than discriminating, dance and movement celebrates individuality and authenticity.
When we move our bodies, we also make both subconscious and conscious decisions. Consider for a moment: when you get a shower, do you have a pattern of washing that your body naturally does? How about putting your leg in your pants–usually we put the same leg in each time. Try crossing your arms as well, now try crossing them with the other arm on top. Our muscle memories make decisions based on patterns that have worked for us in the past. When we challenge these movement patterns, we expand our ability to make decisions and choices. Dance/Movement supports this decision making as we navigate how to place our bodies in space, how to trust our internal senses to accommodate comfortable movement.
Parietal Lobe: Identifies objects and supports spatial relationships
Dancers/movers are challenged to increase our ability to navigate our bodies in space. We build our awareness of ensuring we don’t crash into others (without consent), how our bodies can move from different levels spatially, spatially staying within a certain bounds (the dance space), and navigating ourselves around or with props or other movers. The parietal lobe additionally integrates sensory information from our muscles as we move, and assists us in developing spatial awareness. Dance can actually help us gain increased self control over our bodies in space! Bumping into a lot of things? We can work on that through utilization of Dance/Movement exercises!
Occipital Lobe: Vision
While vision is not necessary for Dance/Movement, our sight can inform us of spatial choices and movement feedback when we are observers. For those who experience sight/visual disabilities, this feedback can be done through consensual touch or other sensory feedback.
Temporal Lobe: Short term memory, musicality and rhythm.
Our bodies hold our last movement in short term memory which flows to our next movement, step or dance motion. Movement and dance supports us in building our response to internal and external rhythms. Folx may say “I can’t hold a beat to save my life.” However, when we tune into our current and bodily experiences, we find we can simply respond to rhythms in our bodies that are occurring “below the surface” such as our heart beats, breath in our lungs or tapping we do on our bodies. See–we all do have rhythm after all!
Pituitary Gland: regulates flow of hormones from the thyroid, adrenals, ovaries and testicals
Movement stimulates hormones such as endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. These hormones influence our bodies to feel: elevation of mood, feelings of pleasure, reduce anxiety, and fosters bonding/connections.
Hypothalamus: Regulates body temperature
In dance, we get to experience warming ourselves up, and then cooling ourselves down.When we support our bodies in building healthy stress responses, like through release of emotions through movement, we also improve our internal temperature regulation. Our bodies ability to regulate body temperature affects the release of cortisol. Through using movement/dance to engage the hypothalamus, we improve our bodies ability to process the stress hormones more effectively through temperature regulation. This can be supported through movement/dance classes as the facilitator/therapist will lead a warm up and cool down between the focus or theme of the class.
Amygdala: Regulates emotion and memory
HELLO! Emotional regulation? Sign me up. Dance supports integration of improving self control over emotions and emotional regulation. Through exploration of a variety of movements, tempos and intensities, dance allows for the safe expression of emotion through non-verbal outlets. When we play with timing, speed and intensity, we are also supporting our bodies in learning how to navigate through a variety of somatic responses. An example would be if a mover is practicing going from a high intensity movement that raises the heart rate and then mindfully transitions to a lower intensity movement that naturally decreases the heart rate, we are training our bodies to increase its tolerance of anxiety or panic symptoms, so when we somatically experience those emotions in the future, we are a familiar comfort and control in being able to independently manage those symptoms. (Basically this exploration/practice develops a new muscle memory for us that is healthier than the panic/anxiety muscle memories!)
Hippocampus: Memory, learning, navigation and perception of space
When we use movement as a form of reflection, we tap not only into memory, but also new learning about ourselves. We navigate our bodies through space, energy and sensation. When we move our bodies in new ways, we immediately tap into learning, flexibility and awareness of self in space. Learning promotes creativity, confidence and increased self awareness.
9. Spinal Cord: Sends the messages from our brains to our bodies, or from our bodies to our brains
Our brains don’t just control our bodies, our bodies' somatic and sensory information also impacts our brains. Our spinal cords assist the parts of ourselves in clearly communicating to each other about needs, feelings, desires, somatic and cognitive responses. Have you ever accidentally gotten your hand too close to the stove without thinking about it? What does your body automatically do? Most likely yank your hand back. There isn’t a thought first, your body responds, this sensory information travels up to the brain, and then we cognitively think to ourselves “phew, missed that one! That could have hurt!” Vice versa, if we are at the playground and look at the sky and notice a storm cloud overhead- our brain tells our body: “Time to go!” And we move to a sheltered location. Dance and Movement assists in improving the connection between mind/body, again assisting us in improving control, choice and responses versus reactions.
Basically, the TL:DR version: Dance and movement affects both the brain and the body simultaneously. While traditional therapy may only focus on the brain, Dance/Movement Therapy, including Authentic Movement, provides whole body engagement, reflection, growth and healing.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll continue to provide blog entries regarding the utilization of dance/movement as a support and treatment for things like, depression, anxiety, trauma and just general work towards wellness and wholeness within a fractured world.
