No one needs to be reminded that exercise is good for our bodies. Moving, running, jumping and sweating in general all give us endorphins, improve our overall health and promote longevity. These are indisputably good things that we should be doing for our bodies — but what about our brains?

In our ‘This Is Your Brain on Bari” series, we’ll dig into the profound ways that our daily sweat sessions boost our brain power. Last week, we discussed how exercise in general affects our brain, and today, we’ll talk specifics about how our cardio sequences at Bari, both on the trampoline and on the floor, are some of the most powerful forms of brain strengthening.

2: Bari Cardio & the Brain

We know learning our sensory sequences when you first come to Bari isn’t the easiest thing in the world. It takes practice. It takes feeling a bit frustrated the first few times (that’s your brain — and yes, your body — being put to hard work!). It takes dedication and commitment. But it’s worth it, Tribers! Sensory cardio and trampoline cardio at Bari provide unparalleled strengthening benefits for the brain.

In fact, these cardio sequences do more for your brain than your daily Sudoku. Yes, really. It’s those holy-shit-my-leg-doesn’t-go-that-high cardio sequences that strengthen, sharpen and train our brains into their prime condition.

Even better news for our Tribers: When looking at ways to decrease the likelihood of dementia, researchers found that out of various activities we may perform, the activity most likely to keep us sharp into old age is dancing — beating out reading and doing crossword puzzles by a landslide!

So, why is that?

Dancing requires more learning than most physical activities; it literally makes us think on our feet. Neural pathways only rewire if our brains need them. So when many scientists think about intelligence, they do so in a “use it or lose it” kind of way. As we discussed earlier, the neural pathways in our brain, like the muscles in our legs, will atrophy if we don’t use them for long periods of time.

If we stop working out, we get weaker, and if we stop doing things that require our brain’s power, we get a bit slower. Jean Piaget suggested that “intelligence is what we use when we don’t already know what to do.” As such, the best thing we can do to boost our intelligence is to involve ourselves in activities that require us to learn something new, and, to go even further, that require us to make rapid decisions. And as we can all attest to, when we step into Bari and discover an entirely new sequence, our brains, as well as our bodies, are forced to work in overdrive.

While Bari is not purely a dance method, so much of what we do in the studio — from the way we move during warm up to the strings of dance moves in our sequences — brings out the dancer in all of us. Dance — along with Bari’s sensory cardio — integrates kinesthetic, rational, musical and emotional brain functions all at once, sculpting our bodies and sculpting our brains. So if you need an extra reason to get yourself to class, you can add ‘get smarter’ to the list.

They say brains and beauty don’t go together, but at Bari, it’s the only combination we know.

Photo via Bari Studio