As we all know, exercise itself has many benefits.
- This includes reducing perceived stress, lowering the level of inflammation in the body, and even promoting brain health.
- It has been found that dance and exercise therapy can help treat anxiety and depression.
A few years ago, against the backdrop of the Detroit skyline, a group of about 15 child refugees from the Middle East and Africa were resettled. They waved blue, pink and white ribbons in the air, jumping and spinning.
This eye-catching scene is very symbolic. The children wrote their own negative thoughts, emotions or memories on each ribbon. With an order, the children put the ribbons in the air, and then sat down nearby. Afterwards, they picked up some ribbons carrying collective struggles and hardships, threw them into the trash can, and waved goodbye to them.
These children are participating in a activity therapy activity. This activity is part of our team’s research project, which aims to explore a body-based approach to the mental health treatment of refugees who have been resettled.
2017, the laboratory ” pressure, anxiety and trauma research clinic ” ( Stress, Trauma and Anxiety Research, Clinic ) began pilot exercise therapy to help solve the problem of trauma refugee families. We recognize that exercise can not only provide a way to express yourself, but also a path to healing and a lifelong strategy for managing stress.
In Western countries, an average of about 60,000 child refugees are resettled each year. Today, the refugee crisis triggered by the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has once again aroused people’s attention to the needs of refugees. The UN Refugee Agency estimates that 6 million Afghans have been displaced in the past 40 years, and now tens of thousands have fled from Taliban rule.
I am a neuroscientist who specializes in how trauma reshapes the nervous system of teenagers. I use this information to explore creative art and exercise-based therapy to treat stress and anxiety. The instinct to move the body in an expressive way is as old as human existence. However, movement-based strategies, such as dance therapy, have only recently received attention from the mental health treatment community.
As a dancer, I always find that the non-verbal emotional expression provided by action has incredible therapeutic effects, especially during my high school and college years, because I was very anxious and depressed at that time mood. Now, through my neuroscience research, I have joined an increasing number of scholars who are committed to using exercise-based intervention as the basis of evidence.
Oneness of body and mind
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the incidence of anxiety and depression among young people doubled . Therefore, many people are looking for new ways to cope with and deal with mood swings.
In addition to this epidemic, conflicts around the world as well as climate change and natural disasters have exacerbated the growing global refugee crisis. This requires resettling refugees, providing them with education and job opportunities, as well as protecting their physical health and providing them with resources for mental health.
In a situation where the abundance of the environment is reduced and children and people of all ages may be sedentary, it is beneficial to provide physical activities and creative interventions during and after the epidemic. Creative arts and exercise-based interventions may be suitable not only to improve emotions, but also to exercise the body, such as pain and fatigue. These factors often lead to severe pain and dysfunction, prompting individuals to seek treatment.
Why do dance and sports therapy?
As we all know, exercise itself has many benefits, including reducing perceived stress, lowering the level of inflammation in the body, and even promoting brain health. In fact, researchers realize that most of our daily communication is nonverbal, and traumatic memories are encoded or stored in the nonverbal part of the brain. We also know that stress and trauma exist in the human body. Therefore, through guided practice, exercise can be used to tell stories, express and release emotions to help people “forward”. This method makes sense.
Dance and sports therapy courses emphasize the cultivation of creativity and adaptability to help people build greater cognitive flexibility, self-regulation and self-direction. This is especially important because research shows that early life experiences and the way children learn to deal with these experiences can have a lasting impact on their health as an adult.
According to the Institute of Psychology of the Child “Children’s Mental Health Report” ( Child Mind Institute Children’s Mental Health Report ), 80% of children with anxiety disorders do not get the treatment they need. This phenomenon is caused by a number of obstacles, such as the availability and cultural literacy of clinicians, cost and accessibility, and stigma surrounding mental health and treatment.
It has been found that exercise and dance therapy and some other type of group behavioral health programs may help you fill in your important gaps. For example, these strategies can be combined with services that people have already accepted. They can provide convenient and affordable options in school and community settings. Dance and exercise therapy can also provide people with coping and relaxation skills, once learned, they can benefit a lifetime.
But is it really effective?
Our research and other people’s research together show that dance and exercise therapy can build children’s sense of self-worth, improve their ability to regulate emotions and reactions, and give them the ability to overcome obstacles.
Like yoga and meditation, dance and exercise therapy are based on deep breathing through the diaphragm. This conscious breathing exercise stimulates the sympathetic nerve in the body, and the sympathetic nerve is a large nerve that coordinates many biological processes in the body. When I work with children, I call this form of breathing and nerve activation their “superpowers.” Whenever they need to calm down, they can take a deep breath, and by activating their sympathetic nerves, their body enters a quieter and less reactive state.
An analysis of 23 clinical studies shows that dance and exercise therapy may be an effective and appropriate method for children, adults, and elderly people with various symptoms, including mental patients and developmental disabilities. For healthy individuals and patients, the authors concluded that dance and exercise therapy are the most effective in reducing the severity of anxiety compared with other symptoms. Our team’s research also shows that for young people who are resettled as refugees, dance and exercise therapy can be expected to play a role in reducing the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.
During the epidemic, we expanded the scale of these projects and brought them into the virtual classrooms of six schools in the Detroit metropolitan area.
Perhaps the most effective evidence for dance and exercise therapy is not something invisible to the eye. In this case, it is visible to the eyes-the children put their negative emotions and unforgettable ribbons in the air, wave goodbye to them, and look forward to the new day.