My last few posts have been a little heavy, so I wanted to bring in a little bit of a lighter tone today.
We all have the songs that we can’t help but dance to.
Bless those songs.
I have a few, but one lately I have been revisiting lately is by the talented Jon Batiste.
I love that he calls it Freedom, that the movement of his body creates freedom.
So many of the feel good dance songs come across with the message of “I’m happy, so I gotta dance!” (Looking at you, Pharrell). But for me, the beauty of Jon Batiste’s music is that I don’t have to come happy to enjoy it. He has this uncanny ability to take whatever mood I am in, inject some dopamine straight into my ear holes, and make me feel like freedom.
I am positive the freedom he is talking about has such a deeper meaning than I can ever reach, but I am glad he is putting it out there so I can at least enjoy the shallow end of the pool. Also, so I can enjoy his suit collection. Beautiful.
Every culture has dances. Isn’t that beautiful! The human experience is so universal that every group of people across the world has played music that made them move their body. Then, they enjoyed it so much, they came together in groups to move their bodies together.
And it’s not something that is just for people who are thriving. There were dances among migrant workers in California during the great depression, among slave groups in the south before emancipation, and among religious outcasts as they walked over a thousand miles to find a place of their own. And these dances were a weekly event, something they had to look forward to as they worked through the drudgery of their personal circumstances. They weren’t so happy they had to dance, they used dance as a way to experience joy.
So I looked into it recently. After dancing to some Batiste, I was wondering why it felt so good. What was the science behind it?
I am a nerd. And I love it.
Endorphins and Dopamine were the first thought I had. And yes, the movement in dancing releases naturally occurring feel-good chemicals in your brain.
It relieves stress. I wasn’t sure about this one at first, because how can dancing change looming deadlines or unpaid bills. Dr. Peter Lovatt talks about dance as a brain and body massage. Essentially, most people store stress in their muscles. I store mine in my back, and my back muscles are so tight all the time. As we dance, we move those muscles and warm them up, and they get loosened through the movement. So the stress relief isn’t in the changing of our environment, it is in releasing the stress we store in our bodies.
Dr Lovatt even released this weird dance.
His studies on dance didn’t require that this specific dance was done (thank goodness), but dancing in general relieved stress and boosted creativity in the study participants. He has studied dance for over 20 years, so I guess maybe he knows what he is talking about.
The last thing I found was that dancing boosts confidence. And you don’t even have to be good at dancing to boost confidence. Which is good news for a lot of you.
A lot of it has to do with body language. Allowing ourselves to take up space signals our brain that we are important.
I have spent a lot of my life trying to take up as little space as possible. My natural stance is slouched and concave. I always sit low in my seat to make sure I am not in the way of someone behind me. I have a habit of taking in my stance or position and scanning the room to make sure it isn’t an inconvenience to anyone else. I want to say I started it out of wanting to be polite, but I honestly don’t know.
One therapist I had noticed this habit, and talked to me about doing a power pose. When I start feeling small and self-conscious, I was supposed to go into the bathroom and stand as tall as I possibly could. Like arms above my head, legs spread past shoulder width, head back. Taking up as much space as possible.
I did it once. Someone saw me. It was embarrassing. I never did it again.
I think she got the idea from this researcher. And this video is amazing, talks a lot about allowing ourselves to take up space. Come back to it and watch when you are done reading.
After I watched this again, I was reminded of a guy who kept popping up in different places for me.
Able Hart is a musician who does these little prances to his music. And I always thought it was fun to watch him be himself so fully that he could pull this off without feeling self-conscious about it.
So if you see me walking like this out in public, don’t worry.
I’m just working on getting happy.
Releasing the Notes 
Leave a comment