We all know we should exercise, but going to the gym can be such a chore — and couches sometimes have their own inescapable gravitational forces. According to a 2014 study in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health, half of older adults are inactive.  

Dancing might be the solution, and the social aspects may be the biggest benefit for seniors.

Rachel Bar is the director of research and health at the National Ballet School in Toronto, and a former professional ballerina. She wants everyone to dance. During her psychology undergrad she began researching what happened inside dancers’ brains when they learned new choreography. The answer? A lot of activity. She then looked into how dance affects the brains of people with movement disorders such as Parkinson’s. Dancing was found to help with balance, posture, range of motion, fall prevention and mood enhancement. Bar then began studying how dance might affect people with dementia. Her biggest takeaway: It’s helpful socially.

“There is quite a dominant narrative in our society that when you have dementia, you are dementia,” Bar says. “That you're no longer a person who can be joyful and silly and creative and playful.”

It turns out that several association members have already discovered the many benefits of dance. Take Vancouver’s Yvette Gray, who joined the group “House" Wives of Hip Hop three years ago. Now, they’re winning medals in competitions and raising money for the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, which is in a Vancouver neighbourhood with disporportionately high levels of drug use, poverty, crime, mental ilness and sex work. Gray, who is “at least 55,” recently retired from Public Services and Procurement Canada, where she was regional director general for the Pacific region.

“Most of the women are in their 40s and 50s and the motto is progress, not perfection,” says Gray, who has creaky knees as well as spinal and neck issues. “It's not spinning on the head, multiple flips. We're not doing any of that.”

Yet, she says, “It's never too late to find your groove.”

Dare to square

Catherine Langille, 78, and her husband Paul, 81, are square dancers who’ll dance to anything the caller chooses. That includes Lady Gaga. The two Nova Scotians are both former Coast Guard members. He’s a retired technology specialist and she’s a retired training officer in the technical services department. The social aspect of square dancing is what got them hooked on it, and they’ve taken to organizing dances to share that love. The health benefits are just gravy on that good time.

“The mental aspect is well known amongst the medical community and is said to add years and improves cognitive ability,” Catherine says, noting that the activity strengthens weight-bearing bones and helps with rehab after injury. “Paul had a knee replacement, and he was back at square dancing after six weeks. And that helped improve the strength of the muscles around his appliance.”

They used to travel a lot to square dance before the pandemic, but these days they’re staying closer to home. They love their square dancing, but they do not and will not do ballroom.

“Oh, God, no, no,” says Paul. “That's a road to divorce for us.”
 

Hit the ballroom

For Patti Kaeding, 61, ballroom is key to her walking down the aisle for a second time. Kaeding retired from the CRA as a manager five years ago, after 36 years' service. Before marrying her first husband in 1985, they took some ballroom dancing classes at Ottawa’s RA Centre as wedding preparation. But as time rolled on and children arrived, other activities supplanted dancing in their schedule. Then in 2000, after returning home from a Caribbean cruise, her husband got a call from the Arthur Murray dance studio offering him a free dance evaluation. He told his wife about how he’d envied people on the cruise doing the Cha-Cha, something he used to know how to do. So, they went to the dance studio and were quickly hooked. Thanks to their mutual musical backgrounds, they became quite good quickly.

Soon they were soon dancing four to five times a week. It helped that her socially awkward “dweeby little computer guy” husband turned out to be really good on the dancefloor.

“It quickly became a very healthy addiction,” she says, noting that the hobby improved her body image, confidence and spatial awareness, helping to counter a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. And she made a ton of friends doing it.

The dance friends became her lifeline when her husband died six weeks after she retired. The community support they gave her helped her deal with suddenly becoming a widow.

“The combination of music, social and physical activity... it's kind of the perfect trifecta for general well-being.”

Kaeding recently reconnected with a former boyfriend and they’re now engaged. He’s taking dance lessons to keep up with her at the wedding.

Vancouver’s Marilyn Buchanan is also a widow and a ballroom dancer, but she doesn’t mind dancing alone. Buchanan, 82, retired from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency as an adviser 20 years ago. As a child, she studied with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, but gave it up at 15 because she was being teased for it.

About 50 years ago, when The Beatles discovered meditation, Buchanan began studying the practice herself. That led her into yoga and she soon became a yoga teacher, something she still does today. Her youngest student is 70.

It was through her love of travel that she discovered dancing, especially in the Latin countries.

“It makes your brain think. It's not just moving the body with the music,” Buchanan  says. “And I think that as you age, it's so important to work with the brain to keep it healthy as well.”

Her Spanish husband passed away three years ago during the pandemic, though not of COVID. He loved to dance, something she now does without him at the seniors’ centre.

“Most of the men don't dance. There might have been three,” she says. “So, women just get up and go through the steps just as if you were in a dance class on your own learning from the instructor.”

Buchanan is barely five feet tall and is also known to enjoy a limbo contest.

Sarah Kenny is a former professional dancer who now teaches in the University of Calgary’s Kinesiology and Arts faculty. She’s spent years studying dance science, focusing on how dance can help us all live better. Kenny has started classes for older adults in Calgary to study how dance affects people. Her classes adapt to different physical abilities, with some specifically catering to cancer survivors and those suffering with Parkinson’s.

“You can see 90 per cent of them have never done a dance class before,” Kenny says. “And so I really highlight how brave they are to register for this kind of thing that is unique in stepping out of their comfort zone. And then by the end of the term, it's like hook, line and sinker.”

Kenny says community leaders had flagged that many seniors were feeling lonely, and that this program combatted this.

“Through our interviews, what really was highlighted was the social connection and how being connected, having a sense of belonging within their own communities was a motivator to keep coming,” she says. “And I think saying that too, when we are physically active and when we are moving our bodies, there's lots of the feel-good hormones getting released and that helps us feel good about ourselves and our bodies and being in the world.”