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Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

journals.plos.org

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Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

#21

Post by johnfn »

didibus wrote: post #2

Hum... Now this makes me wonder if VR games could achieve a similar effect, such as Beat Saber. Since VR games could combine physical and mental activity into one.

I do believe that VR absolutely has potential to shake this up. VR games have a physicality to them that is unmatched in any other sort of computer game.

I played ping pong on VR the other day, and it was amazing! I've played a bunch of ping pong in real life, and the physics in VR - along with the feedback in the controller - felt almost exactly life-like. It was truly a mind-blowing experience. It made me realize though that we're really at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what kinds of things we could do with VR. Up until now, the games we could play had the limit of only taking a few key presses and mouse motion as input. Suddenly we're now afforded the entire realm of physical motion. Not to hype it up too much, but the possibilities feel practically endless.

Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

#22

Post by booleandilemma »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #16
ByThyGrace wrote: post #15

> An extensive pre/post-assessment was performed on the 38 participants (63–80 y) Mind the n = 38. People already taking the title at face value in this thread.

I thought the "low sample size, checkmate!" without any other analysis was limited to Reddit dilettantes.

It’s here too, along with betteridge's law and references to the dunning-kruger effect.

Maybe the frequency of these things can be explained by the 80/20 rule, ha.

Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

#23

Post by d_silin »

skookum wrote: post #5

If the postulated basis is correct and acts on a continuum, it wouldn't be a huge leap to think that doing physically challenging outdoor sports that require a high degree of reaction to constantly-changing surroundings would be even better than dancing. Sounds like a case for skiing, mountain biking, climbing, surfing, whitewater kayaking, etc.

I love indoor climbing, really makes physical exercize the opposite of boring.

Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

#24

Post by cjbenedikt »

Priem19 wrote: post #13
skookum wrote: post #5

If the postulated basis is correct and acts on a continuum, it wouldn't be a huge leap to think that doing physically challenging outdoor sports that require a high degree of reaction to constantly-changing surroundings would be even better than dancing. Sounds like a case for skiing, mountain biking, climbing, surfing, whitewater kayaking, etc.

“In our view, the more pronounced effects of dancing on the human brain can be explained by the fact that dancing promotes a large number of processes at the same time: spatial orientation, movement coordination, balance, endurance, interaction and communication.” That means I'm golden with skateboarding as well; fantastic.

How about gymnastics?

Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

#25

Post by wutbrodo »

aeturnum wrote: post #18

This feels like common sense to me. The dance they describe isn't just physical movement, it's also staying within a group movement which requires both reading where "the group" is and giving space to individual differences. Obviously the focus here is on exercise but I would be curious if a less physically demanding but similarly grouped activity would have similar effects on brain function. I suspect that linking p…

I wonder if the same effect is even stronger for many competitive sports, where the brain-muscle loop includes a more complex modeling of competing agents vs cooperative ones as in dance. Something like basketball is anti-inductive; falling into an easy pattern will be immediately exploited by the other team in a way that isn't prevented in dance.

Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

#26

Post by scarface74 »

I can definitely see this. I have very mild Cerebral Palsy. I can run and end up in the middle of the pack in most races and sometimes in the top 3 or four for my age group (pre-Covid). I even taught fitness classes about a decade ago.

But trying to learn a dance move or take someone else’s choreography heavy exercise class was like trying to understand a second language when you are first learning it. I had to translate it to my “native language” and it took much longer for it to click even when I could physically do it.

It was more mentally taxing than studying for any test or anything I had to do as a developer.

Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

#27

Post by mtalantikite »

codr7 wrote: post #10
skookum wrote: post #5

If the postulated basis is correct and acts on a continuum, it wouldn't be a huge leap to think that doing physically challenging outdoor sports that require a high degree of reaction to constantly-changing surroundings would be even better than dancing. Sounds like a case for skiing, mountain biking, climbing, surfing, whitewater kayaking, etc.

Don't forget martial arts. I've had good experiences from teaching Wing Chun to students who practiced dancing and/or (somewhat surprisingly in this context) Yoga before. What dancing and martial arts have in common more than the rest of your list is creativity and two minds working together.

Absolutely agree. Before everything shut down I used to practice yoga at a school here in Brooklyn that was very physically demanding and attracted a lot of more advanced practitioners. Most of the advanced students had long histories with dance or martial arts (or both). All of these arts teach increased awareness both physically and mentally, challenges your proprioception, and surprises the body with creative movement.

I personally had been looking for a place to practice a martial art to add to my yoga practice, but then covid hit and the city shut down. Hopefully after all this is over though.

Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)

#30

Post by Aerroon »

didibus wrote: post #2

Hum... Now this makes me wonder if VR games could achieve a similar effect, such as Beat Saber. Since VR games could combine physical and mental activity into one.

My guess is yes. The only issue right now is that sweating with a headset on doesn't feel great.
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