|
Dance therapy for mental patients
|
|
By Melissa Jackson
BBC News Online health staff | |
Dancing may be a way to tone the body, but it is also a dynamic way to exercise the mind, say health experts.
Dance and movement are known to have physical and psychological benefits for those with mental illness.
A recent study by academic Sarah Cook, who has personal experience of mental health problems, shows dance is a powerful therapeutic tool.
As a student, she ended up in hospital for several months after becoming suicidally depressed.
She discovered dance more than 10 years ago and has since used it as a way of dealing with grief, sorrow and other "stress-producing" emotions, quite literally dancing them out of her system.
She said: "I use dance as my personal strategy.
"If someone dies, I will dance through my grief.
"Dance is a way of dealing with feelings and releasing them, instead of locking them in and going to the doctor with depression and anxiety."
|
Dance is a way of dealing with feelings and releasing them, instead of locking them in and going to the doctor with depression and anxiety 