Dancing with Depression
Depression, with over 264 million people suffering from it across the globe, is the most widespread form of mental illness (source: World Health Organization). Its power is crippling. It can keep you in bed, dysfunctional, for weeks, months, or years. Depression can lead to self-harm and in worst-case scenarios, suicide. This is a scary, costly, and deadly illness affecting too many across the globe.
The problem is so big that it affects most of us one way or another. In the United States, over 17 million people experienced depression in 2017 (source: national Institute of mental health). Imagine what that number is now in 2020, as we are facing a new kind of mental health disaster.
If you haven’t experienced depression personally, a friend or family member you know most likely has. It’s important to understand depression and what we might be able to do.
Depression takes control on the grounds of a few key factors: how you think & behave. Unkind, persistent patterns of negative thinking combined with self-sabotaging behaviors lead us into depression. It’s a ferocious and dangerous cycle.
Incredibly, we can fight depression on the grounds it robbed us. We can regain control of those thoughts and behaviors. There’s hope. For us, we really recommend a dance called dork dancing. We think mental health professionals may even consider prescribing it.
Here’s how it starts: you feel shitty but you decide to dance anyways because you acknowledge it's at least worth a shot. You adopt a willingness or objective to dance like a dork for the practice, or hope, to feel better. With this, dance mental health science takes over.
When you listen to music & dance you are doing wonders for a depressed brain. If embraced, you will start naturally producing happiness chemicals (endorphins, serotonin, dopamine). You don’t need to tell your brain anything, or think your way into happiness. Instead you are tricking your brain in the best possible way. All you need to do is lead with your feet. Listen & dance.
You may not feel like it. And you may not enjoy it starting out but give it time. If you give it a try, for let’s say at least 30 minutes, you should notice a difference. You will feel these chemicals working in your favor. Those chemicals will release, and in turn you should start to feel better.
This is the start of something big: behavioral change & regaining control. The start of overcoming depression.
Research from Sweden shows us how dancing with depression helps (source: science nordic). There, they studied 112 teenage girls struggling with anxiety & depression, as reported by school nurses. 59 of the girls attended weekly free movement dance classes, twice a week, over the course of eight months and 53 did not.
The results showed that those who danced improved their mental health with elevated moods. The 59 girls felt better than when they started and better than the 53 who did not dance. What’s most surprising is not the mood boost, but the longevity of the boost. The positive effects lasted up to fourteen months after the dance classes ended!
Dancing is powerful, so long as it’s practiced over time. These girls danced twice a week for 8 months, and reaped benefits still 14 months later.
No need to take this one study as conclusive nor sufficient. There’s more studies to support the finding that dance, as a form of therapy, is effective in treating depression.
Heck, there’s an entire field called Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) devoted entirely to dance as therapeutic intervention. It’s evidence-based and used as treatment in clinical settings. In a systematic review of research, all of the studies pointed to the same conclusion: those who received DMT treatment decreased more in their depression scores compared to those without (source: frontiers in psychology).
If you are looking for an activity that will give you a high return on your mental health, making a habit of dance seems like a smart bet. You don’t need to look good, or move in any particular way. This is dork dancing, and we do it for mental health.
You can join us online or in person, you have a community of people dancing for mental health just like you, for similar reasons as you. Whether it’s depression, fear, anxiety, loneliness, or something else. All of our dance is mental health motivated.
It can be more fun to dance with others, because socializing with others helps tremendously too. Building good relationships is the biggest predictor of well being and with us, you can make new friends, building those good relationships.
With a practice of dork dancing successfully adopted (either on your own in your room or with us) you are now taking the lead in your dance with depression. You have happy feet and with time, those happy feet will inspire new, healthier habits of thought and action. Of mind and body. Because of its positive effects on depression, Dork Dancing is a happiness habit worth exploring.
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