Dance and Musical tradition of Warkaris (Maharashtrian Vaishnava) and Cognition

नाचू कीर्तनाचे रंगी, ज्ञानदीप लावू जगी! Namdeov Maharaj (1270-1350), prominent Maharashtrian Saint Poet quote, "Lets dance and sing (kirtana) and lets enlighten the world!!" The Wari (holy walk towards Pandharpura) is a walk with great enjoyment! Warkari (walkers) sing kirtana and dance! Wari not a serious classroom of Vedanta with critical cross referencings from Upanishadas! Wari is in fact a practical/demonstration laboratory of Vedanta! And the practical season alloted here is "to sing and to dance!" नाचू कीर्तनाचे रंगी, ज्ञानदीप लावू जगी! Isn't that interesting? The way of enlightenment (ज्ञानदीप) goes through singing (kirtana) and dancing! This simply implies importance of particular singings and dancings for the enlightenment! Last night I surfed for same and delighted to know that there is a seperate scientific JDMS (Journal of Dance Medicine and Science) journal dedicated to this! Rythum and Dance are as old as human bipedal walking! Rythum is an important phenomenon as नित्यग and अनुबंध are said synonyms of life in Ayurveda! Life is considered as a continuum in perpetual motion. Thus phenomenon of rythum has got a core place in human physiology according to indian understandings. Music and dance are physiologically linked with reward and pleasure related areas of brain.Music and dance may just be particularly pleasurable activators of these sensory and motor circuits.  "A 2003 study in the New England Journal of Medicine by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine discovered that dance can decidedly improve brain health. The study investigated the effect leisure activities had on the risk of dementia in the elderly. The researchers looked at the effects of 11 different types of physical activity, including cycling, golf, swimming, and tennis, but found that only one of the activities studied—dance—lowered participants’ risk of dementia. According to the researchers, dancing involves both a mental effort and social interaction and that this type of stimulation helped reduce the risk of dementia" "In a small study undertaken in 2012, researchers at North Dakota’s Minot State University found that the Latin-style dance program known as Zumba improves mood and certain cognitive skills, such as visual recognition and decision-making. Other studies show that dance helps reduce stress, increases levels of the feel-good hormone serotonin, and helps develop new neural connections, especially in regions involved in executive function, long-term memory, and spatial recognition." "Dance has been found to be therapeutic for patients with Parkinson’s disease. " Its indeed interesting that the keertana and dancing traditions of vaishnavas have got such a physiological basis. 1)https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-dance/ 2)https://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute/brain-newsletter/and-brain-series/dancing-and-brain