16/11/2025
💃🏻🕺🏻Dance and Dementia 💃🏻🕺🏻
Peter Attia discusses how dance, like other cognitively demanding activities, can be protective against dementia by contributing to both cognitive reserve and movement reserve.
He emphasizes that a higher movement reserve, which can be developed through activities like dancing or martial arts, is associated with a slower decline in neurodegenerative diseases.
Combining this with aerobic and strength training, which boosts cardiovascular health and muscle mass, provides a powerful, multi-faceted approach to brain health and longevity.
💃🏻🕺🏻Dance and dementia💃🏻🕺🏻
Increases cognitive and movement reserve: Learning to dance builds both cognitive and movement reserves, which act as protective factors against neurodegenerative diseases.
▶️Protective against decline: Individuals with a higher movement reserve, such as skilled dancers, may experience a slower decline in motor function even after a diagnosis of a condition like Parkinson's disease.
▶️Offers cognitive stimulus: Dancing provides a significant cognitive stimulus, which can help to mitigate the risk of cognitive decline, especially when used as a replacement for less stimulating activities.
Broader context from Peter Attia
▶️Exercise is crucial: Attia considers exercise a primary intervention for mitigating Alzheimer's disease risk, noting that individuals who exercise adequately experience a greater risk reduction than with most other interventions.
▶️Variety is key: A mix of exercise types is important, with a general recommendation of roughly two-thirds cardio and one-third strength training, though individual needs should be considered.
▶️Focus on "athlete-like" training: To maintain physical and mental sharpness into old age, Attia suggests starting to train like an athlete in your 40s and 50s.
