Dance is a powerful way to connect with others, lift your mood and support brain health, says integrative medicine physician Dr Geeta Maker-Clark. Here’s why it deserves a place in your life and how to weave it into your daily routine
Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia—marked by the gradual breakdown of brain cells and communication pathways—are some of the most feared diseases of old age. Many of my patients tell me that their number one concern about aging is losing their memory, followed by falling and getting injured or hospitalized and losing quality time with loved ones.
Dementia can affect younger people, but it is far more common in those over age 65, and incidences rise dramatically with age. Until a cure is found, prevention remains our best hope and is what I focus on with my patients.
In our integrative clinic, we consistently recommend a regular sleep schedule, a predominantly plant-based and anti-inflammatory diet, ongoing intellectual engagement, and routine physical activity. While these measures are unquestionably preventive, current research has not demonstrated transformative or groundbreaking effects from any single intervention.
Because there is no single cure for neurodegenerative disease, growing research highlights the power of movement-based interventions—especially dance—to slow cognitive decline, enhance memory and promote neuroplasticity, the brain’s natural capacity to adapt and rewire itself.
A landmark study out of Germany by Katrin Rehfeld and her team compared elderly adults who participated in regular dance classes to those doing conventional fitness training. Only the dance group showed increased volume in the hippocampus—a brain region critical for memory and balance—and improved white matter integrity, which supports communication between brain regions.
The author states, “Dance challenges both body and mind, especially through constantly changing movement patterns . . . this may explain its neuroprotective effects.”1
While all exercise and movement can have powerful health outcomes and should be a daily part of your routine, only dance has been shown to improve this area of the brain.
A meta-analysis by Dr Lavinia Teixeira-Machado in Brazil reviewed multiple studies and found that dance enhances cognitive performance, particularly in working memory, spatial awareness and executive function—skills critical for navigating daily life and decision-making.2
Unlike repetitive exercise, dance demands mental agility, coordination and learning new patterns, which keeps the brain active and adaptable. In other words, when we do the same activity over and over, it may strengthen the muscles, but it doesn’t create neuroplasticity.
It’s one of the most remarkable and awe-inspiring aspects of our biology. Your brain is not fixed. It’s always learning, reshaping and responding to experiences, movement, emotion, injury and even intention.
The brain continually creates new connections between neurons and strengthens or weakens existing pathways, depending on how often they’re used. It can even reorganize itself after injury or trauma, as seen in stroke recovery.
Old patterns fade when they go unused, while new ones grow stronger with practice and reinforcement. You might notice that when you practice something new, like an instrument or meditation, new neural pathways are forming and strengthening, which might make the skills feel hard to learn initially. But you can indeed “teach an old dog new tricks” if you keep stimulating your brain.
Likewise, if you stop doing something you once did for a long period of time, like speaking a foreign language or riding a bike, the related brain connections do weaken, but they can be reactivated.
We have one of the most sophisticated, divinely designed mechanisms on earth in our skulls, weighing only three pounds, involved in our every thought and move. You never have to stay stuck because your brain is well designed to change. It’s a real miracle.
For people with neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s disease (PD), dance is another medicine to add to their support system. More than 1 million people in the US are living with Parkinson’s disease, and according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, each year another 60,000 are diagnosed with it.
PD belongs to a group of conditions called motor-system disorders, which develop when the dopamine-producing cells in the brain are lost. The chemical dopamine is an essential component of the brain’s system for controlling movement and coordination. As Parkinson’s disease progresses, an increasing number of these cells die off, drastically reducing the amount of dopamine available to the brain.
The primary motor symptoms of PD include slowed movement, stiffness of the limbs and trunk, tremors, and impaired balance and coordination. It is these very symptoms that dance may help alleviate. And while there is a lot of research on dance and disease, much of it is observational and is not in the form of randomized controlled trials, the holy grail of medical research.
Still, there is a plethora of significant observational science in this field, and any risks associated with dancing are miniscule compared to the benefits.
The acclaimed dance company Hubbard Street Dance Chicago offers the oldest Parkinson’s dance program in the Midwestern United States. The Parkinson’s Project uses contemporary dance techniques to slow the progress of the disease while providing a community of support for students.
Classes are free and open to all on Zoom every week, and they’re recorded in case anyone is unable to attend the live class. Most, but not all, of the instruction is from a sitting position, allowing for bold, expressive movement that does not compromise balance, often an obstacle for people with PD.
According to one participant, “The exercises increase range of motion, get you using muscles and joints that PD stiffens and cripples with tremors, and remind you that, in spite of PD, you are still a creative, expressive and physically capable person. You’ll also interact and dance with other friendly and encouraging PD sufferers.”
Dance provides an invaluable outlet for joyful expression that PD can take away as facial and muscular rigidity sets in. When so much of our emotional expression lives in our gestures and movement, conditions like Parkinson’s and dementia can narrow the ways we communicate and shape how others see us. Dance becomes a salve for the spirit.
One of the studies I rely on most in my workshops on dance as medicine is more than 20 years old, from long before the other studies I mentioned earlier. Published in 2003 in the New England Journal of Medicine by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, it showed that dance has a unique impact on brain health.
The study examined how leisure activities affected dementia risk in older adults. Of 11 popular physical activities—ranging from cycling and swimming to golf and tennis—only dance was linked to a reduced risk of dementia.
The researchers stressed that no other activity combines cognitive demand, neuroplastic transformation through movement and rich social interaction quite like dance. This multidimensional stimulation makes it one of the most powerful known lifestyle factors for reducing dementia risk.3
While all exercise offers some neuroprotective benefit, this finding about dance is remarkable. Decades later, I still believe it deserves to be headline news: Dance—which is free, enjoyable, accessible and something you can do anywhere, anytime—has the power to help prevent a disease for which there is no cure? That is a medicine, indeed.
For communities facing barriers to clinical care or systemic neglect, dance offers a low-cost or no-cost, culturally adaptable, nonpharmacological health support. And when grounded in ancestral movement practices, dance is more than a brain exercise; it’s a radical medicine of identity and remembrance, a return to lineage and belonging.
Through dance, we can reclaim our power to speak, to grieve, to praise and to heal. Dance is where we process trauma that words just cannot reach. It’s where we rewire the nervous system, reawaken pleasure and return to collective rhythm. In healing justice movements, dance serves as both release and repair—a way to come back into relationship with land, lineage and each other.
Dances like Afro-Brazilian samba, Punjabi bhangra, Greek sirtaki, Palestinian dabke, Irish barn dance and street-dance cyphers reclaim space and rewrite narratives of survival, affirming that our ancestors are still here with us and that we still remember how to come together.
Dance becomes a form of embodied sovereignty, an insistence that we are more than what was done to us. Joy and movement are not luxuries but medicine. And in every twirl, spin, jump, sway and strut, we are becoming whole and embodied.
Dancing with others is a joyful experience, and the best part is you don’t need a community already in place to join in and feel connected. Many neighborhoods and towns have YMCAs, community centers or religious organizations that hold group dances or DJ’d parties that are open to all.
If you do not have a particular dance tradition from your family culture, these are great opportunities to join in. They are often nonhierarchical, nonperformative, inclusive and rooted in the belief that movement is medicine. They hold space for grief, joy, ancestral memory and liberation—especially for those whose bodies have been marginalized or politicized.
Dancing for fun—or as daily practice, release or spiritual care—is a dance of freedom. It’s a movement for joy, for release, for no reason at all. It doesn’t need to be seen to be valid, and there is no one to impress or necessarily anything to communicate.
There are no steps to remember or an artistic vision to uphold, or such a thing as being good or bad at it. This kind of dance emerges from intuition, not choreography, and allows the body to lead and the mind to follow.
When I bring the idea of dance as a medicine into the patient room, I make sure to be clear that free dance welcomes silliness, slowness and sweat and is often healing, playful, emotional and deeply felt.
When you dance for yourself, it can be wild, quiet, primal, awkward, ecstatic or tender. It may look like swaying in your kitchen, jumping around in your underwear and socks, or even crying while you move your hips in circles to release tension.
This is a medicine dance, not for display but for remembrance, joy and release. There’s no hierarchy between dance for performance and dance for oneself. Both are powerful. Both are joyful. Both can heal. Both invite you to express and feel. You can choose whether you want one or both forms of dance in your life.
When I teach movement practice together with Hemalayaa Behl at our retreat in Costa Rica, we invite people to move their hips first. We store so much of our trauma, our ideas of what is provocative or suggestive, or not for us, in our bodies. The hips in particular are often so tight after decades of use only for walking and sitting and rarely opening up.
They are a storage center for emotions, especially deep feelings like stress, fear, sadness and even old memories. This is partly because physical tension builds up there.
We tend to tighten our hips when we’re stressed, anxious or trying to protect ourselves, and over time these small, repeated contractions cause the muscles and fascia (the connective tissue) to hold tension. The hips also connect to the pelvis and lower body, which is tied to our sense of safety, grounding, sexuality and creativity.
The sacral chakra, known as Svadhisthana in Sanskrit (which means “one’s own dwelling place”), is the second chakra in the traditional chakra system of yogic energy. It’s thought of as the energy center of emotions, creativity, sensuality and flow and is located in the lower belly and pelvic area, just below the navel.
It connects to the hips, reproductive organs and lower back. This chakra is all about our ability to feel, express and process emotions and our drive to create—whether that’s art, new ideas or even new life.
It’s also where we connect to physical pleasure, intimacy and joy in the body. When we move our hips in big circles, back and forth, and get energy flowing there, the movement actually increases our ability to adapt, change and “go with the flow” rather than get stuck in our minds.
So beginning with the hips offers a beautiful gateway into dancing with yourself—into feeling the pleasure of movement and music while opening into a deeper sense of joy and release. Experiencing that expansion so quickly is a profound and fantastic medicine.
In 2024, after teaching about the neuroscience of dance at several conferences, I had the opportunity to teach a workshop at South by Southwest (SXSW), a creative mega event held annually in Austin, Texas. I called it DanceMedicine: A Doctor’s Rx for Joy, Movement and Healing.
When I arrived, the room was set up like a lecture hall, rows of chairs lined up neatly, signaling that perhaps they expected a talk, a slide deck, maybe an audience-centered discussion. But dance doesn’t live in the rows of academia; it lives in circles, in rhythm, in breath, in eye contact and in sweat—so we shifted the space, moved the chairs aside and made room for a different kind of doctor-led workshop.
Participants came from diverse backgrounds, representing many ages, abilities and cultures. Some people had not danced in many years.
I began with a short presentation on the research and power of dance to prevent neurodegenerative disease and how trust, rhythm and joy help rewire the brain. I spoke about how movement isn’t just exercise, it’s a return to connection, a tool for regulation, a form of resistance, a ritual of remembering. Then we turned on the music.
I had readied myself for the possibility of needing to coach and encourage people to stand up and move, but it wasn’t necessary. Within the first 20 seconds, every single person, from age 20 to 80, was on their feet.
Some were hesitant at first, gently swaying, while others jumped right in. But very quickly, something shifted. Shoulders dropped. Smiles emerged. The energy softened and rose up at the same time. You could feel the room exhale, with almost a sense of relief and ecstasy taking over.
It was a palpable and rapid shift. Many people met eyes and danced with each other for seconds or minutes, mirroring each other’s movements and entraining their dance vocabulary without words or thoughts, only joy.
Dance is the kind of medicine that works really fast because it speaks a language older than caution and fear. It bypasses the thinking mind and goes straight to the spirit. It taps into our primal urge to move, to connect, to release.
In that workshop, in the middle of one of the world’s most cutting-edge thought festivals, something deeply ancestral unfolded. A room full of strangers were moving in unison, laughing, letting go, completely uninhibited.
As our time together drew to a close, I reminded everyone to remember what this moment felt like in their body and how they could feel this anytime they chose, simply by dancing.
The collective effervescence—the healing uplift from shared resonance and the release of endorphins, oxytocin and dopamine that comes with it—restored belonging, connection and emotional vitality on that wonderful day.
It was one of the most special workshops I have taught, and it spurred me to continue spreading this message of just how effective dance medicine can be if we simply open ourselves up to it.
At the heart of dance lies a powerful and primal physiological phenomenon called entrainment: the ability of separate beings to synchronize their rhythms, movements or biological functions simply by being in shared presence.
In physics, entrainment occurs when pendulum clocks gradually synchronize their swings; in biology, it appears when clusters of fireflies flash in unison or when women’s menstrual cycles align through pheromonal signaling.
Entrainment emerges most vividly through music and dance. Neuroscience has shown that when we dance together, especially to a strong beat, we don’t just move with the music; we move with each other. Our heart rates and brain waves actually begin to synchronize.1
Even before we have language, we have rhythm. Neuroscientific data shows that synchronized movement increases feelings of trust, social bonding and cooperation. Infants as young as five months old can bounce to a beat, suggesting that rhythm and synchronization are hardwired into the human nervous system.2
This ability to move together in time is not just enjoyable but evolutionarily vital. Synchronized movement builds social cohesion, enhances cooperation, and reduces perceived pain and isolation.3 It’s why people dance at weddings, at funerals, in protest marches and healing ceremonies.
In entrainment, our bodies remember their place in the web of belonging, and that web is rhythmic, relational and healing. Moving together is an evolutionary protection that creates safety and cohesion within communities.
Entrainment in dance conducts a spiritual and emotional resonance, a felt knowing that we are not alone. When our bodies move in rhythm, our nervous systems remember that we are connected, that joy is communal and that healing happens in the shared pulse of movement.
Start with a space where your spirit can move freely. To begin a daily dance practice, you do not need mirrors or specific skills. You only need a space where you feel safe to unfold—without judgment, without performance.
This practice is for every body, in every shape, in every season of life. You are invited just as you are. Have the audacity to just dance for no reason.
Choose music that stirs something in you. Songs that carry memory, make your heart swell, or feel like home or like fun—whatever music you choose, let your body hear it, and let your spirit rise to meet it.
If you are more comfortable when seated, dance seated. If you are still, begin from that stillness. Movement can bloom from the smallest place—a fingertip, an eyebrow, a breath.
Commit to the 5-Minute Dance Meditation Practice every day. I recommend the practice below to every person I care for. We can all spare just five minutes a day.
Let it be sacred, let it be silly, let it be alive. You will feel the shift. The lifting of mood, the softening of the chest. Within one week, you will feel lighter, more free and more joyful.
Adapted from Medicine for All People: Science and Ancient Wisdom for Revolutionary Healing by Dr Geeta Maker-Clark (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2026)
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