Dancing can ward off brain diseases and increase mental acuity at all ages. Participating in dancing or similarly engaging activities can dramatically reduce the occurrence of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. A 2013 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found freestyle dancing, which requires rapid-fire decision making, is essential to keeping a sharp mind because it forces the brain to regularly rewire its neural pathways, especially in regions involving executive function — mental skills to help us get things done — long-term memory, and spatial recognition — using reasoning skills to decipher objects in 3D and draw conclusions from them based on limited information.

“All of the actions listed above are due to increased blood flow, neural response when we listen to music, the psycho-social response we have when we interact with other people and the muscle-tendon junction response for stimulation of strength/balance in the human body,” said Rodriguez.

Perhaps we can dance the night away to better brain health, even in old age.