Ceilidh is good for you

Your good health

Ceilidh dancing is an excellent workout, a medium to high intensity exercise, though you can take things more gently if you want to.

As with other cardio exercise, dancing is excellent for your physical health:

  • Good for cardiovascular health – a stronger and healthier heart.
  • Flexibility, coordination and balance – all the different movements and changes in direction when dancing work many different muscles and improve control of your body’s movements.
  • Regular exercise can help you feel more energised.
  • Aerobic dance can help you lose weight, just as effectively as jogging or cycling.
  • Brain health – remembering steps, even just during a dance, and changing direction can help your memory.
  • Learning to dance is great for improving posture.

Your happiness

The social and psychological benefits of folk dance are a major reason to try it out:

  • Learn dances, messing them up, racing around – all are almost guaranteed to make you smile and laugh, and build connection with others.
  • Moving to music reduces stress and anxiety, and is a good distraction from everyday worries (hard to think about other things when dancing)
  • Group dancing can help relieve depression
  • Ceilidh is great for making friends and building a sense of community. Even if you feel a bit awkward in groups the set steps and group endeavour to get the dance right and have fun are excellent for feeling welcomed and included.
  • All of these benefits are great for self-esteem and a sense of accomplishment!

Evidence

Apart from the fact, that we think if you try ceilidh, you’ll feel the evidence, here are some articles to read if you want to check this out more, and so you know we’re not just making it up! The academic articles are behind paywalls, but you should be able to read the abstracts. A summary is ‘ceilidh and dance are good for you’.

Booth (2012) Night of traditional Scottish dancing offers all the fitness benefits of going to the gym, Daily Record.

British Heart Foundation (undated) 6 reasons to dance your way back to health. Heart Matters magazine.

British Heart Foundation (undated) Dancing after heart problems, Heart Matters magazine.

Connor (2001) Recreational folk dance: A multicultural exercise component in healthy ageing, Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 47(2):69 – 76.

Douka et al (2019) Traditional Dance Improves the Physical Fitness and Well-Being of the Elderly, Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 11: 75.

Forcini et al (2013) The Role of Folk Dance in the Processes of Individual and Social Wellbeing: A Comparison with Other Popular Recreational Activities Through Models of Decision Theory and Game Theory, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 84, 1750-1756

North Edinburgh News (2018) Energy burned dancing at a ceilidh could power Edinburgh tram for four days.

Price (2019) Folk Dance: An Occupation For Building Community, Online Theses and
Dissertations. pp.642.

Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (undated) Health Benefits of Scottish Country Dance.