10 Reasons to Dance. (Yes, Dance.)
The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing. – James Brown
Dancing?
It’s a topic that sounds like it’s coming out of left field.
But here are ten reasons why dancing has skyrocketed up my list of favorite activities these past few months.
1. It takes the edge off. We burn away excess energy, and give it some place to go. Our nerves are less jittery. We literally get loose. Also, just try to dance without smiling or laughing. Betcha can't.
2. It’s awesome cardio. There are hundreds of ways to dance and nearly every single one of them boosts our heart rate. Stick with it for 30 minutes, and you’ve got yourself a very decent workout.
3. Additional health bonuses: Women who dance have better posture, greater flexibility and are able to perform daily activities with greater ease and confidence. (Source.)
4. We can dance alone. For me, it happens on our back porch, most mornings before anyone else is awake. No one is there to see or judge.
5. We can dance with one other person. Let’s just say that there are reasons why couple's therapists recommend dancing. Dancing is flirty. Our focus is on our own bodies and one other person. There’s movement, newness and joy.
6. We can dance in a group. The first time I went with my friend Sara to a group dance class, in Atlanta where we live, it felt like part dance party, part exercise. Above all, it was a micro-community that I never would have found otherwise.
7. Dancing is a mental break from Everything Else. When we dance, especially if we’re part of a class or we’re following choreography on video, we must focus exactly on what we’re doing or else we lose step. When we dance, there’s no room for the worries or the distractions of our regular lives. Thank goodness.
8. Dancing gets us off autopilot. Recently I heard a leading researcher in neuroscience say that “95 percent of who we are by the time we’re 35 years old is a set of memorized behaviors.” Ninety-five percent! Yeah. It’s about time to move in fresh, un-memorized ways, don’t you think?
9. Dancing connects our minds and our bodies. Our bodies impact our mental health, and our mental health impacts our bodies. We know this intuitively, yet experiencing it turns on lightbulbs all the way along fresh neural pathways of the connection.
10. We re-learn our own bodies. The body remembers everything. As we start moving our bodies again through dance, maybe for the first time in decades, muscle memory kicks in. It's as if they raise their hands and say, "I'm here! Remember me?" For me it was the muscles in my hips, and those muscles in the bottom of my feet between the ball and the tip of the toes, and the muscle at the joint of my shoulder at the edge of my collarbone. It’s like a whole new (and somehow unexplored) landscape in there, within my very own body.
A few resources that I've found helpful include The Class, which I learned about while preparing ABG's audio segment for The Fine Line podcast; Dance 101, a studio with a range of online (and in person) class offerings and a super interesting backstory; and The Dance Cure, a book about the cognitive and emotional benefits behind dance and movement.
As James Brown knew, dancing is the one thing that can solve most of our problems. At least, for me, on our back porch when no one is there to see or judge.
I hope it helps for you too. And please let us know about your own experience!
Namaste,
Cathy
What We're Reading:
Here's what has piqued our interest this week in the world of wine and mindfulness.
Wine is a language. Do you lose it when you stop drinking? By Helena Fitzgerald for Food & Wine
I learned about wine as a way to communicate with my parents. When I stopped drinking, I worried I would lose the connection we had about it too.
Fierce Self-Compassion: Q&A with Kristen Neff, by Raju Narisetti for McKinsey & Company
There are really two ways we can show ourselves compassion. There’s tender self-compassion, and there’s fierce self-compassion.
Health and Wellness is Luxury’s New Favourite Marketing Tool. Here’s Why, by Anne-Sophie Scharff, for LuxurySociety.com
How can brands join in on the topic of wellness and wellbeing while being aligned with their core identity and crafting a message that resonates with their current audiences?
How to Break Out of Your Pandemic Procrastination Rut, by Daniela Morosini for TheCut.com
The lack of structure due to working from home and/or having fewer in-person commitments – plus the simmering unease of the past 15 months – has created the person petri dish to put off just about everything.
Harnessing Empathy to Show True Compassion, by Sonia Zadro in WellBeing.com.au
At a cultural level, empathy is critical to fostering kindness, compassion, non-violence and happiness. At an individual level, empathy is essential to happiness.
How Meditation Positively Impacts My Life, from the Perspective of a 12-Year-Old, by Tali Arielle for Chopra.com
The worst part was knowing desperately that I wanted to be sleeping and how tired I was, yet I couldn’t find a way to quiet my mind.
Mindfulness Training Helps Kids Sleep Better, from Stanford Medicine
Children who learned techniques such as deep breathing and yoga slept longer and better, even though the curriculum didn’t instruct them in improving sleep.
Meet the Community!
Here we meet some of the talented folks who make our community profession so dynamic.
Heidi Scheid, Executive Vice President, Scheid Family Wines (Monterey, California, USA)
Years in Industry:
I joined the wine industry the year my daughter was born so her age is my reminder: 29 years! But I fell in love with wine a few years before that. It was 1987 and I was a restaurant manager at the very first California Pizza Kitchen in Beverly Hills, which back in the day had a small but wonderful wine list of California producers. The owners sat me down to taste through the wines; I had one sip of Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon and it was a ‘wow’ moment. I had waitressed my way through high school and college and had peripheral knowledge of wine but there was something about sitting down and really tasting, discussing and learning about the wines that was so different, it changed how I thought about it. Although I ended up going back to school to earn my MBA and pursue a career in finance, that exposure created a new connection for me.
Flash forward a few years to 1992, I was on maternity leave from Ernst & Young, visiting my dad and brother at the family grape growing operation which was then called Monterey Farming Corp. With baby in tow, I started helping out and, well, never went back to my corporate job. I joined as Director of Planning, then VP of Finance and Chief Financial Officer, then SVP and now EVP. I’ve been incredibly lucky that my career has been able to evolve alongside the growth of our family business, from a wine grape grower and supplier to other wineries, to a full-fledged branded goods company. Our recent brand launch, a ‘better for you’ wine called Sunny with a Chance of Flowers, is a joy to work on, and my passion for the most unique, history-filled, complex, delicious beverage in the world continues to grow every day.
My Top Three Challenges to Wellness:
Monkey Mind: My mind can hop around a lot. I used to pride myself on the mistaken belief that I was a great multi-tasker. I’m not. In fact, I don’t think anyone really is. It takes effort to be present in the moment and really focus your entire being on what’s in front of you rather than the other million things that may hopscotch across your mind.
Healthy Diet: I put in a lot of hours and I don’t love going to the market or cooking. Therein lies the problem lol. I often find myself going, “Shoot! It’s already 7:30pm and I’m starving!” Cue DoorDash and something that probably isn’t balanced and healthy. My daughter says, “Mom, you’ve got to meal plan!” but I’m just not into it. I choke down a few green juices every week hoping that it’ll make up for my less-than-healthy diet.
Laziness: Just keeping it real here. Like many of us, I have an on again/off again relationship with exercise and sometimes my love of sleep/Netflix/chocolate chip cookies wins out over lacing up the running shoes. My desire to be healthy doesn’t always prevail but I give myself a pep talk and remind myself that it’s just the first 10 minutes that suck….after that, it feels pretty great! And bonus points if you get it done in the morning cuz then you get to gloat all day.
How I Keep It Together to Stay Well:
We all know there’s no secret to physical wellness: sleep well, eat healthy, exercise regularly. But mental health can be more elusive. I used to beat myself up when I was younger, always feeling like I needed to do more and be more. I would go so far as to say I was unkind to myself and saved my harshest words for my inner conversations. It’s one of the great benefits of age: perspective. At a certain point you realize that 90% of what you worry and stress about doesn’t even really matter in the grand scheme of things. In the moment, it can be difficult to keep that outlook but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found it easier to identify what is actually at the root of my stress and just that acknowledgment goes a long way in alleviating it. I think the biggest part of wellness is recognizing joy and allowing yourself to be happy. And enjoying a nice glass of wine at the end of the day sure doesn’t hurt.
What Inspires Me:
Wow, so much! Many people – my parents, my colleagues, anyone who is trying hard and putting in the effort – are inspiring. Travel is inspiring, seeing how language can separate us but something as simple as a smile brings us together. Nature is inspiring, whether it’s the vastness of the ocean or seeing the world from a mountain peak and realizing how insignificant some of the things we worry about really are.
Quotes I Love:
“Everything in moderation.” – My Mom
“Life is just an adventure.” – My Dad
Connect with Heidi on Instagram, Facebook and through the Scheid Family Wines website.
