At Design For Change Recovery, we offer dance fitness as one of our exercise classes during our client’s stay in our residential programs. The reason why? It’s science. Take for example, Zumba. Zumba is a latin dance oriented fitness class which has given thousands of people around the world amazing results in their weight and physique but most importantly in their physical and mental health. TIME reports that studies have “linked Zumba’s hip-swinging, stomach-gyrating movements to increased core and trunk strength and better balance …” Studies have found that over the course of eight weeks in regular attendance of Zumba classes, particIpants had an increase in both their quality of life and their self-esteem. “A related study on Zumba’s psychological benefits found that people who practice it feel more independent and said that their lives seemed more purposeful,” the article cites.
Improvements in quality of life and self-esteem, increased strength, feelings of independence and purpose- all of these are outcome goals of everyone who walks into a treatment center. Addiction and alcoholism tend to do a number on an individual’s self-esteem, physical health, and mental wellbeing. Dance is a way to let go of inhibition and expectation. Through dance fitness, clients have a chance to be silly, be themselves, and practice an important spiritual principle of recovery.
The third step in recovery advocates turning oneself and one’s will over to the care of a higher power of their understanding. Many people equate music with a higher power. In dance fitness, clients surrender themselves to the guidance of rhythm, movement, and beat. They are emotionally evoked and moved by a sound and energy over which they have no control. Finding healing and guidance in that act is a metaphor for recovery.
Lastly, dance fitness is helpful to the recovery process because it shows clients how to have fun! Recovery is, if for no other purpose, to learn how to have fun in life without drugs and alcohol. Getting goofy, acting silly, and not worrying about what others think, in a healthy way, is an important practice for clients to realize it is okay for them to be themselves and to have fun in recovery.
Design For Change wants to help clients find the freedom that is waiting for them in recovery. Everyone is capable of recovering. Everyone is capable of change. For information on our residential treatment programs and recovery services, call us today at (877) 267-3646.
