Photo: The vitality of John Kirsch and Wanda Finley, an over-70 dancing duo known all over the Midwest, suggests that dance is good for health and happiness.
A medical group in the United Kingdom is prescribing dance and music to touch parts of patients’ lives that pills can’t reach.
Giverny Masso writes at The Stage, “An NHS [United Kingdom’s National Health Service] organisation has released a cultural manifesto that pledges to prescribe dance and music to alleviate loneliness and poverty.
“Halton Clinical Commissioning Group, which plans NHS services in Cheshire, aims to ‘put a choir in every care home’ and calls for a ‘paradigm shift’ in health care. HCCG says it aims to reinvent health services by encouraging people to engage with cultural activities instead of focusing solely on medicine.
“In the manifesto, it says: … ‘There are no pills for loneliness and poverty, but a rich cultural context can help ensure residents are better connected to each other and feel more able to cope.’
“The manifesto draws on the example of people with dementia, stating that while there is no cure, people with dementia can learn to live well with what they have through a range of community-based activity such as dance.
“Halton CCG adds that community choirs can help people manage asthma by boosting control of breathing and increasing lung capacity, reducing the need for emergency medication and rescue inhalers.” More here.
Anything that takes a comprehensive look at well-being sounds good to me. Reminds me of past posts on doctor prescriptions for bike sharing and fresh food from farmers markets.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
That photo of the couple dancing is wonderful–it sort of says it all! The UK seems to be at the forefront with these initiatives.
Yes, even as the UK’s National Health Service struggles, they seem to be thinking up new ways to complement medical care.
Yay!!! I love this story. Often we human beings seem simply to be re-inventing/re-discovering/re-validating millennia-old wisdom — such as the deep value (on many different measurable metrics) of singing and dancing with other human beings…
I do sometimes feel that my daily routines have gradually, imperceptibly shut off aspects of my life that I used to enjoy. I’m puzzled by how to get them back. Unimaginatively, all I can think of is to take a class.