How to Dance Your Way to Better Health, Happiness

Supports self-image. Rachyl Pines, a research scientist at Stanford Health Care, says dancing, particularly ballet, promotes what she calls “successful aging” — what she defines as being more socially engaged and having a positive view of aging. 

As a doctoral candidate at University of California Santa Barbara, she studied women ages 23 to 87 who were attending ballet classes.

She found that dance allowed many of the older participants to embrace their aging bodies. “It was really beautiful to hear some of these women talk about how maybe their leg doesn’t go quite as high as it used to in years prior or maybe they can’t jump with the same amount of power … but they found new ways to focus on different elements of dance as their experience of their physical body changed over time,” Pines says.

Ready to get your dancing shoes on? 

Where to look for a class. Chun says people over 50 can find great, age-specific classes at senior and community centers: “Usually they will have a senior offering or a beginner offering for all ages.” There also might be dance studios or gyms that offer dance classes — including ones specifically for older adults.

Check for a discount. Sometimes insurance will pitch in for the cost or pay for the class, Chun says: “A lot of my patients will start with Zumba or with a program called SilverSneakers, which is very popular and oftentimes covered by your insurance.” But regardless, always ask if there is a senior discount wherever you’re signing up for a class.

Pick a style you like. Certified BeMoved teacher Myra Daleng, 77, says you might need to shop around for a class that’s a good fit. 

“I always say that you need to try on a class just like you try on a pair of shoes,” she says. “Go somewhere where you can take a demo class.… Try a class here, try a class there, and see what feels right for you.”

If you don’t want to try out a new style in a classroom setting, turn to online resources like YouTube, Chun says, where you can explore different kinds of dance from the comfort of your own home.

Be in tune with your aging body. That said, when you’re picking a style of dance, Shehab suggests adults 50 and older avoid anything “highly impactful” that involves lots of jumps and high-intensity movement. 

“We want to avoid things that put load at extreme ranges of motion,” he says, “so things like deep squats or deep lunges … we don’t want to do in a very repetitive manner.”

Verghese recommends anyone 50 and older get cleared by a medical professional before starting dance classes.

“It’s not that if you have medical conditions that you can’t dance, but then the dance can be tailored to your level of health fitness,” Verghese adds.

Most important: Leave perfection at the door. “If you don’t get it right, it does not make one bit of difference,” Daleng says. “You can just stand there and march and enjoy just being with the other people in the class. Or, you know, if you need to sit down … we don’t judge.”

“After the initial minutes or so, nobody really cares about how you dance because they’re all focusing on their own dance,” says Verghese. He takes dance with his wife and says people have been very welcoming in the ballroom classes they've attended. 

“Pretty soon I realized that I didn’t really need to be so worried and self-conscious about how good or bad a dancer I was,” he says.