It’s time to start practicing your dance moves. A new study that examined the effects of exercise on treating depression found that dancing in particular is more effective than other kinds of exercise. And the study, which appeared in The British Medical Journal, a peer-reviewed journal, found exercising beats both therapy and drugs when it comes to treating depression.
Researchers ranked the effectiveness of various exercises and treatments in reducing depression symptoms. Walking and jogging trailed dancing in their effectiveness, followed by cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs, a commonly prescribed type of antidepressant. “Our new research shows that exercise should be considered alongside therapy and antidepressants,” wrote one of the study’s authors, Michael Noetel, for The Conversation. Noetel is senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia. “It can be just as impactful in treating depression as therapy, but it matters what type of exercise you do and how you do it,” he wrote.
Noetel acknowledged, however, that the insights about dancing came from just five studies, which mostly involved young women, and other kinds of exercise were backed up by more evidence. Exercise overall is an effective addition to drugs and psychotherapy, the researchers found, and can improve a range of physical and cognitive outcomes.
Another international study from 2022 found that dance offers a “feasible alternative to traditional physical activity.” The findings also indicate that dance provides physiological and psychological benefits to healthy and medically compromised populations. But the benefits of dance extend beyond physical ones, according to research. Recent research points to dance movement therapy (also known as DMT) as an increasingly implemented treatment, “though primarily used to target psychological and physical well-being in individuals with physical, medical or neurological illnesses,” according to a recent study from the University of London.
The BMJ study included 14,170 participants and looked at walking, jogging, aerobic exercise, strength training, tai chi and qigong, an exercise practice from Chinese medical tradition. The study also used 218 randomized trials from 246 reports. The method applied in the study — called network meta-analysis — allowed the researchers to assess each kind of exercise and compare their impacts. “As a result, we were able to combine the strengths of various approaches to exercise and to make more nuanced and precise conclusions,” the authors said.
The study revealed that women especially benefited from strength training and cycling, whereas men seemed to benefit more than women from yoga, tai chi and aerobic exercise along with psychotherapy. For older people, yoga and aerobic exercise appeared to be more effective. And strength training showed to be more beneficial for younger participants.
“It didn’t matter how much people exercised, in terms of sessions or minutes per week,” Noetel told CNN. “It also didn’t really matter how long the exercise program lasted.”
“None of these treatments are silver bullets. But given how debilitating it is to have depression, almost all patients should be offered both exercise and therapy,” Noetel told CNN. Even Elon Musk is getting behind the studies’ proposal. “Maybe I should try that,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in response to another post by scientist Erik Hoel, who highlighted the finding about dancing and called it “kind of beautiful.”