What’s one thing you can to do collectively boost your mood, productivity and physical health?
Hint: Everyone can do it.
Answer: Dancing!
According to Dance psychologist Peter Lovatt, Ph.D., Regardless of whether you practice law or teach children in an extracurricular setting, routine dance breaks can provide a refresh that improves almost everything such as mood, problem-solving, brain function, health, productivity and even teamwork.
4 ways dance improves health and teamwork in the workplace
If you have a body, you can dance. So why not use the fundamental human activity to your benefit? Here are 4 ways dancing can improve health and teamwork in a workplace setting:
1. Dance improves cognition and problem-solving skills
In an experiment, Lovatt discovered that when employees were given two problem-solving tasks with a break in between, the group that was allowed to dance during the break performed leaps and bounds ahead of the group of employees who didn’t dance during the break.
2. Dance leads to an overall better mood
“Exercise gives you endorphins; endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don’t shoot their husbands.” Elle Woods said it best, y’all and Lovatt’s study confirms that exercise, such as dancing has the ability to immediately increase an employee’s mood.
3. Dance improves social behaviors
Have you tried solving a problem in the workplace when everyone’s out of sync? It’s difficult to come to an agreement when a group of employees are reading from different pages of the playbook, right?
Lovatt details how two groups of cardiovascular patients participated in either a 12-week dance program or a 12-week workout routine. At the end of the study, participants in the dance program showed greater results than the group who went to the gym.
Let’s extrapolate this to the workplace, shall we? Rhythmic movement, such as dance can help a group of employees better solve for problems when they find the right rhythm and can move together as a team.
4. Dance provides an outlet for physical activity
We’ve all heard that long periods of sitting aren’t good for your health. Unfortunately, people with demanding desk jobs don’t necessarily find many opportunities to get up and walk around during the course of their work day. And while walking to the copier provides some folks the ability to stretch their legs, they might catch some side eye for incorporating your favorite Broadway dance scene into your walk down the cubicle aisles.
In conclusion, people often ridicule dancing as something meant for only one part of society. But that’s all wrong. We can benefit from dancing in so many areas of life, especially the workplace.
People are literally born to dance – and Lovatt’s research proves it.
