Movement (dancing) in synchronization with sounds has been shown to have a number of benefits on the mind (through integrating different areas of the brain). However, movement on an audio queue is also a reflex-improving exercise (the stimuli being audio beats). Therefore, if you dance to follow a beat, you are training your brain to execute a reflex (dance move) every time the bass hits. When I go to lousy hip hop / rap nightclubs, people are dancing pretty slow in my book (60 beats per minute). When I go to nightclubs that play electronic trance / dance, people are dancing much faster (140 beats per minute), myself included. Thus, at hip hop / rap nightclubs, people “hump” (that seems to be the standard dance move) at the rate of approximately 60 BPM. At trance nightclubs, I “lose it” at the rate of approximately 140 BPM. I am inadvertently conditioning myself to respond faster to audio queues.

What is the best music for developing reflexes? Trance, Psy-Trance and Drum N’ Bass… oh yes. If you can’t dance, just do a stutter-step run-in-place to some wickedly fast beats… or jump with every bass hit. You’ll burn a ridiculous amount of calories, learn to follow beats and improve your reflexes to audio stimuli all in one considerably enjoyable activity.