Dancing through life is actually a lot more responsible than it sounds. Dancing is a great way to keep your body and mind healthy; and it’s not just for the young. Studies show that dancing helps sharpen your mind, reduce stress, maintain your figure, stay limber and get out of your comfort zone.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a study that shows a connection between dancing and memory retention in the hippocampus (the place where short and long-term memory is stored). Dancing slows the natural shrinking of memory that comes with age. The mind constantly needs to be challenged in order for it not to shrink. Learning dance steps is a perfect way to do just that.

Dancing also helps reduce stress. The Journal of Applied Gerontology reports that grabbing a partner and cutting a rug can cut out some stress. Dancing releases endorphins (pain-relieving neurotransmitters) into the bloodstream, which produce a good feeling in the body. Dancing can be quite rigorous at times which makes it a great exercise. While your body is releasing endorphins, you’re also burning quite a few calories. Dance is therapeutic and healthy, in part, for those reasons.

In addition to trimming your figure, dancing can also help you stay on your feet. As you dance you improve your balance. As the years go by, your sense of balance begins to regress. If you maintain a challenging regimen of exercise (dancing being a part of that), the natural decay of balance slows.

Lastly, dancing helps you get off the couch and get to know some new people. Forming new relationships is a healthy and extraverted way to add spice to life. If you’re married, it’s a perfect activity to bring you and your spouse closer together. If not, ladies always like a guy who knows how to dance.

With the increasing popularity of shows like “Dancing With the Stars,” dancing is starting to come into the limelight. Thus, making it a little less obscure for those who only dancing in nightclubs. So whatever the reason, your heart or your shoes, dancing is a good choice to give you the control, stability and quality of life that you want. It can also be a lot of fun.

Andrew Snow is a writer for MyCollegesandCareers.com. My Colleges and Careers helps people determine if an online education is right for them and helps them understand which online courses and online schools they can choose from to reach their goals.

We all know that diet and exercise are vital elements of good health. No matter what the current “fad diet” is, or how advanced video games become, health care professionals still agree that maintaining a balanced diet and participating in a safe and productive exercise routine give you the best chance of being physically and mentally healthy.

While this is pretty much universally known, however, it is not universally practiced. For some it is a matter of laziness, but for others, regular exercise is just not in the cards. Individuals with limited mobility often find it difficult to keep up with the physical demands of everyday life, much less a strenuous exercise routine.

But limited mobility does not equal limited ability! There are plenty of things that physically limited individuals can do to stay mentally and physically fit. Sure, solving this problem may take some creativity, but it will be more than worth it in the end! Here are some ideas to get you started on your way towards a more healthy lifestyle – and none of them require a treadmill or elliptical machine.

Walk!

It’s simple, it’s free, it’s versatile, and it’s beneficial. Walking is the low-impact exercise that will help you stay active with minimal effort. Whether you’re able to throw on your windbreaker and venture around the block, or you can’t do much more than a couple trips to the kitchen in your slippers, walking whenever possible will help you get some great exercise.

If you use a wheelchair, but are able to walk occasionally, do so whenever possible. Make sure you do not wear yourself out – stop and rest when you feel tired or have any kind of pain. And if you are strictly bound to your chair, don’t fret – there are still ways for you to stay fit!

Work your arms

Arm exercises can be done while sitting and are easily adaptable to accommodate different ability levels. Here are some simple arm exercises for you to try:

• Hold your arms straight out in front of you, or straight out to your sides. Make small circles with your arms to work your arm muscles. Add light dumbbell weights, or hang lightweight rings around your arms (think diving rings) to add more resistance, if you can!
• Use dumbbell weights and do traditional bicep curls. Hold the weight firmly in your hands, and keep your elbows at your waist. Your hands will be at your side if you’re standing, or in your lap if you’re sitting. Keeping your elbows at your waist, bring the weight up to your shoulder or chest and then slowly lower it again. Start doing only 5-6 at a time, and work up to 10-12 at a time when you’re ready.

Stretch

Stretching is very good for your body. It can keep you flexible, which can in turn help prevent injury and increase your mobility. Here are some simple stretches to get you started:

• Stretch your arms by reaching as high up as you can, one arm at a time.
• Stretch your arms by reaching across your body. Cross your right arm across your body, reaching out to your left side. Grab your right elbow with your left hand to help maintain the stretch. Then reverse the stretch to stretch your left arm.
• Stretch your neck muscles by lowering your chin to your chest and then slowly rolling your head from shoulder to shoulder.
• Stretch your legs by sitting comfortably, lifting one leg, pointing your toes, and then flexing them. Repeat three times, and then switch legs.

Dance

Believe it or not, even people with limited mobility can dance! This includes those who are confined to a wheelchair or even bed rest. All you need is a little music and a willingness to move. Turn on the music and wiggle whatever you can – fingers, hands, arms, hips, legs, feet, and head. Tap to the beat, or forget about the beat and just move! Any kind of movement will help you increase strength and mobility. Have fun with this one!

When exercising, it’s most important that you stay safe. Talk to your doctor about possible exercises you might try to keep yourself active. Find activities you enjoy, and stick to them. Remember – staying active will help increase your mobility, improve your mood, and keep you feeling your best!

Katie Harris is a freelance writer for JacksonWhite Attorneys at Law. Their attorneys focus heavily on Arizona senior law including ALTCS planning and Arizona medicaid.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by lululemon athletica

It can take a lot of time, energy, funds, and mental anguish to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Sure, those exercise DVDs can get old and walking or running can only go so far toward accommodating your fun-loving personality. Going to the gym or repeating the same neighborhood routes can cause mental fatigue that works against your motivation to lose weight and stay healthy. Weight loss doesn’t have to be boring, so try some of the following ways to have fun with your active lifestyle.

Borrow a Page from the Playground

Play tag at the park or even in your own front yard if there’s enough space. If you have kids, they’ll enjoy chasing you and being chased, so it’s a great way to spend some quality family time while keeping your weight in check. You can even call your friends and schedule some time to play tag with other adults, too. Another option is to grab a friend (or a bunch of friends) and play basketball, soccer, or tennis. Competition is always fun, and you can raise the stakes by making the loser pay for or make a healthy lunch like Greek salad or grilled chicken stir fry.

Get Out There

Pack a healthy picnic lunch, then take a bike ride, go hiking, or canoe/kayak for the rest of the morning. Being out in the sun and fresh air makes everything seem like more fun, and you’ll definitely enjoy seeing some beautiful scenery, especially if you choose to go somewhere you haven’t been yet. All of these activities can get your heart rate up while improving your mood and making you smile.

Just Dance

If you’re frustrated and stressed, turn on some of your favorite music and dance it out. If you’re not a dancer, you can find some inexpensive DVDs to help you learn exercise moves that mimic dancing. Once you learn some moves, you can improvise whenever you need to get rid of stress, so don’t even think about eating that cookie.

Check Out Power Yoga

Power yoga, also called Ashtanga, vinyasa, or flow yoga, gets your heart rate up and keeps it there to help you lose weight. This type of yoga emphasizes strength and flexibility, keeping chanting and meditation very minimized and making sure that you lose fat and build muscle. It’s easy to find a class near you because power yoga has become a popular way to get exercise and maintain a healthy weight, but be sure to read difficulty level descriptions carefully so you’ll know which level is best for you.

Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at College Scholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Tango for greater physical and mental health!

Dancing is not only fun and a great way to socialize, but is a great way for people of all ages to stay in physically fit! Its been one of the main topics of major medical news stations and channels, that social dancing has become a great way to replace the twenty minutes of brisk that doctors have been recommending for years.

Exercise doesn’t have to be utter drudgery! The amount of calories burnt is directly related to what type of dance you are doing. Tango tends to have the largest range, as you can dance very slowly, but also dance in quite a quick movement. Here is a simple list of calories burnt an hour for most social dances:

• Ballroom/Tango: 180-480
• Belly dancing: 180-300
• Jive/swing dance: 250-400
• Line dancing: up to 300
• Salsa: 400

I can let you figure out the amount of calories you’ll burn in a week from dancing, and to the average person, they will be able to see the calories burnt are equivilant to time spent jogging or cycling. Some doctors suggest that this is actually better then those activities because these use both your mind and almost your entire body. Dancing will improve your posture, and enhance parts of the legs and feet that regularly don’t get worked (people often find muscles in their feet that they didn’t know existed before).

And naturally, dancing is great for your metabolism and mental well being. Your bones will strengthen, the side-to-side motions of Tango strengthen the tibia, fibula, and femur and also help in the prevention or slow loss of bone mass associated with osteoporosis. This is especially true for employees who spend the entire day at a desk- where they have a greater risk of a slipped disk.

Tango Dancing has been found to be a great stress reliever. It has also been seen as a contributer to high self-esteem and maintaining a positive outlook. This is why dancing is seen as theraputic- and Tango music especially is known to offer a superior form of relaxation, by maintaining beats with out traditional drums it creates a smoother sensation then that which can be gathered from more modern music.

Most major cities have a lot of activities involving dance occurring- I live in Portland Oregon and there is a Portland Tango event every single night. A simple google search will find you activities occurring in your own city. Tango being a social dance, it is seen as a way for people dealing with divorce and depression to connect to the outside world- helping them, get out of the rut there life was currently in. It does this by improving your social outlook by creating strong ties with the people you dance with and improving your feelings of self worth by fostering a community that desires you.

We all understand how important it is to get fit but there are so many different kinds of programs and classes popping up how do you decide which one to choose?

After taking the time and consideration to research the numerous options for how to achieve your goals, you will most likely stumble upon a few “Fitness Trends.”

Rather than invoking the proven methods of dieting sensibly and exercising over a period of time, fitness gurus have come up with new and trendy ways to work out. While they may be sexy and fun, are they actually producing results?

Here are a few examples.

1. Yoga Booty Ballet. This is a weight reduction system that uses yoga, dance, and body sculpting all rolled into one workout. It’s well known for targeting most women’s problem areas – abs and booty. While this serves as a great cardio workout, it’s not particularly great in refining the body and incorporating a successful combination of mind and body that’s essential to yoga.

2. The Burlesque Workout. This offers a twist onto a straight forward cardio routine of dancing. The Burlesque Workout is designed to slim and tone your body, while also helping you gain confidence and unleash your inner sex kitten. Again, another good cardio workout and a bit of fun, but not great for those unfamiliar with dance.

3. The Pole Workout. This combination of dancing and striptease, involving a strippers pole, offers a radically wild workout that combines yoga, stripping, and ballet. They promote helping women stay healthy while also nurturing their wholesome sexuality. Although it’s a bit fun and naughty, usually women who want to get in shape for their wedding want nothing to do with stripping.

While these trendy workouts offer a good time combined with some exercise, it’s not necessarily going to do the trick to get you in shape for the big day. Working out in any shape or form is always better than being sedentary, but these are mostly just gimmicks trying to get future brides to spend money.

This is a guest post by Sarah Harris who is the Marketing Manager at Adiamor. Adiamor offers a large selection of engagement ring settings, loose diamonds, and other fine diamond jewelry at affordable prices.

General meaning of ‘dance fitness’ is quite clear from the words it consists of. Doesn’t it seem familiar to you that some type of physical exercises becomes boring for you in a while and you sole your interest to it because it doe not bring you joy and effect any more? Surely it is familiar to thousands of people. Bore is the reason why so many of us give up going fitness.

We all like dancing. Even those people who claim and think that they don’t like dancing still like, they just don’t realize this fact. If look deeper dancing is also a sort of physical exercises. So, why doesn’t it make us boring? The secret is in music, our inner mood, and in attitude to what we are doing and how/in what manner. In other words the main point here is in combining exercising and having fun. We all know that any job that we like and enjoy will never make us boring and can hardly make us tired, but it can certainly make us happy.

Dance fitness, which is also known as “beat-based” fitness, is becoming big business in gyms and dance studios and a hot favorite among celebrities. And it’s only but natural because people who are often on public are trying to always in a good shape. For this purpose they search for best out of all available ways and methods. Dance fitness is certainly among them. Besides all forms of dance fitness share the bonus of combining fun with a great cardio workout. And the best part of a beat-based fitness routine is that it is creative. You can indulge in any form of exotic or ethnic dance. Moreover it has long been proved that this type of exercises is extremely helpful and effective for weight loss purposes.

So many people who used to be involved into sports or seriously carried away by physical fitness decide to go dance fitness just being curious or in order to try something new. And after they try they just can’t stop and give it up. They become addicted to it. Well, it’s a good source for addiction, and no one can blame them for this.

If you want to know more about it you can read and even watch it from you computer. Fitness dancing absorbs all the best features of physical exercises and various styles of dancing including national directions.

So, each nation can offer its own fitness dancing. Consequently the variety of choice and options is extremely broad to choose from. Within one training hour (if having fun can be called training at all) you can try out African, Indian, Spanish, or Irish motives and movements, and possibly choose the one (or a couple) that suits you most.

From the said above we see that fitness dancing is also rich for its cultural aspects. In an easy manner it helps to get know closer different styles of music and various national peculiarities of music and dancing.