Life With Parkinson's in my 40's- #21 Dancing Queen or Healing Queen

I have had another wonderful insight into my own strange world of PD and dance. Over the last 8 years of struggling to control my body's movement, I have always known one thing and only one thing for sure; well about PD anyway. And that is that when I dance the PD becomes far less evident. Now, I know some of my spectators whether dancers or not have been very skeptical either about the fact that I even have PD in the first place because let's face it, typically PD patients don't dance??? And secondly that I really couldn't change all that much physically just because some music is on and I do some dance steps. I know there are some well meaning people of my acquaintance whom I attend church with who think I'm a little nuts because I claim to have PD and I claim to be a ballroom dancer and instructor.
Well....I have just met a lovely man with PD who found my writings and is quite excited about another PD patient who can dance! I found out through him that they are actually doing a study on PD patients and dance. They are mystified that music could heal, mystified at just how this could happen. These are neurologists. Why is this so hard. It's a no brainer (little pun there)! Music is recognized by a different part of the brain, it triggers positive emotions and chemicals that affect the PD symptoms. Dancing keeps the physical body healthier, muscles, etc. If you search my blog, you will find video's and pictures of me dancing.

My next door neighbors used to be a sweet Italian couple in their 70's; loved each other dearly. The wife had a stroke and couldn't speak any longer and was put in a care facility. Her daughter told me some time later that her mom could not speak but she could sing! Same concept.

I have been listening to positive affirmations and a self hypnosis script on headphones for about a week now. This is a communication to my subconscious that has been trained over a lifetime of 40 + years to feel certain emotions because of tramatic events when I was young. All of us have these tramatic emotional experiences in our brain somewhere. Listening to headphones allows a certain part of the brain to process what we are hearing differently than from a radio or from a cd. My dancing (music is a big part of it)and the self-hypnosis tape is changing my PD rapidly from severe to hardly any symptoms at all. Why? Because I am reaching the inner parts of my brain where the memories are harming me and I am reprogramming, making new neural pathways. Yes, it is possible! My neurologist doesn't want to hear it but it is true.

Now, mind you, I am still taking my PD meds but most Pd patients even with meds cannot function to care for themselves completely- so frustrating!!!! If I eat correctly, get good sleep (a hard thing with PD), do my meditation and hypnosis, and....DANCE I maintain a 'slowly improving' status pretty consistently.
There are a few doctors out there who believe this though I don't think any of them are neurologists! I'm sorry to all you neurologists who have studied and studied and really think you know best; you don't. You are too wrapped up in your profession to see the real picture. I am very blessed to have a doctor who sees the real picture and I thank the good Lord for him every day.

I stopped talking about this because I was talking to the wall and the air and my walls and airspace were all taken up with it. Now I know someone else is listening.
To my new PD friend who dances to move, see you on the dance floor!

*By the way- The song "The Dancing Queen" by ABBA is a great tune to do the samba to. We've just been teaching the samba to this song this very evening. I got home and read about PD patients who couldn't walk but they could move to the music of ABBA. Fantastic!