Cha Cha
HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Put on your cha cha shoes and get ready to dance with me, because research shows that dancing enhances aging brains, specifically parts of the brain that are critical for memory and thinking.
Dance, dance, baby!
Let your hair down and dance your heart away with today’s 5-minute cha-cha routine. Burn calories while you’re dancing the night away! This hip shaking party from my Latin Rhythm workout was filmed at Los Angeles’ famous Conga Room, co-owned by J-Lo and Jimmy, which pioneered the Premier Latin Experience. This video is sure to turn up the tempo!
It’s been well-researched that regular workouts improve brain health. Studies show that physical activity in older people helps prevent age-related memory loss by slowing the normal loss of brain volume. There’s even a possibility that exercise helps lower the risk of dementia.
If you were to peek inside the brain, you’d see the medial temporal lobes, which is the part that contains the hippocampus… the center of your memory. With age, it begins to sputter and lead to a decline in thinking and memory. But exercising may impact that trajectory.
Dance-based routines require agile thinking, which puts the medial temporal lobe to work. Following and remembering a routine while moving both your arms sand legs puts a demand on your mind, making coordination workouts unusually potent for slowing some of the changes that the brain experiences with aging.
