This week, Mad in America examines three studies around alternative treatments for depression. The first finds that salsa dancing in linked to improvements of mild to moderate symptoms of depression. The second finds that dance-based interventions for depression show clinically significant improvements. The third finds that exercise-based interventions likely reduce symptoms of depression.
Study Finds Salsa Dancing May Reduce Depression and Social Anxiety
A new study published in Psychological Medicine finds that salsa dancing is linked to improvement in mild to moderate symptoms of depression. This research, led by Brennan Delattre from the University of Oxford in the UK, also reports reduction is social anxiety and improvement in daily happiness linked to salsa dancing.
The goal of this study were to determine whether an eight-week salsa dancing intervention could improve depression symptoms. The authors also wanted to examine the effects of salsa dancing on social anxiety, generalized anxiety, loneliness, daily happiness, and social anhedonia. They recruited 121 young adults (aged 18 to 24) from in and around Oxfordshire in the UK that reported mild to moderate symptoms of depression to take part in a randomized controlled trial of a salsa dancing program. Participants were randomly assigned to either an eight-week series of group salsa dancing classes in a community setting or a control group that was put on a waitlist for the classes.
On average, the group that participated in the dance classes improved 2.45 points more on a measure of depression (PHQ-9) compared to the waitlist group. Compared to their own baseline measure, the salsa dancing group’s depression score improved by three points during the course of the intervention. This is well above the study’s predefined 1.7 point threshold signifying a clinically significant change in depression scores. While both groups reported improvements in social anxiety, generalized anxiety, loneliness, and daily happiness, the salsa group showed significantly greater improvements in social anxiety and daily happiness measures.
This study had several limitations. People that volunteer to participate in a study of dance as an intervention for depression may be more interested in and optimistic about dancing compared to the general population of people with symptoms of depression. The control group was placed on a waitlist rather than participating in some other active intervention. This means the findings cannot say for certain that salsa dancing improved depression symptoms. Improvements may have been related to social interaction, exercise, or having a structured weekly activity rather than the salsa dancing itself. As the participants were all recruited from in and around Oxfordshire, generalizability to other populations is limited.
Dance Therapy and Other Dance Programs Show Benefits for Depression
A new study published in the European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience finds that dance movement therapy and other structured dance interventions show clinically significant improvements in symptoms of depression. Author Zhi Xing from Zhaoqing University in China also reports that dance interventions showed the most improvement for people that had chronic pain in addition to symptoms of depression.
The aim of this research was to examine the effect of dance-based interventions of symptoms of depression. Xing also wanted to compare dance movement therapy to other forms of dance such as tango, square dancing, and Zumba. The author conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials dance-based interventions for depression. Included studies had to have participants with clinically diagnosed depression or elevated depression symptoms and use a standardized depression scale to measure symptoms, such as the PHQ-9. In total, Xing examined data from 19 randomized controlled trials including 1,375 participants.
Overall, dance-based interventions showed a clinically significant improvement in depression symptoms compared to control groups, with a standardized mean difference (SMD) of -1.11. Compared to dance movement therapy (SMD -0.96), other forms of dance-based interventions showed greater reductions in depression symptoms (SMD -1.18). Interventions lasting between four to 12 weeks were linked to the most improvement (SMD -1.43) while interventions lasting less than four weeks showed no improvement and those lasting more that 12 weeks showed improvements that were too small to be certain they were caused by the intervention. People with chronic pain in addition to symptoms of depression had the most significant improvements (SMD 3.33).
This research had three main limitations. The included studies varied greatly in terms of depression measures, specific intervention, and control group conditions. The majority of participants from included studies were female (80%). Some of the subgroups were small and based on few trials. This means the comparison of some groups, including the different durations of dance-based interventions, may not provide conclusive findings.
Exercise May Help Depression, While Benefits for Anxiety Are Uncertain
A new umbrella review published in Frontiers in Psychiatry finds that exercise interventions are linked to reductions in depressive symptoms. This study, led by Yafei Gao from Kunsan National University in the Republic of Korea, also finds that exercise interventions showed mixed results for reducing symptoms of anxiety.
The goal of this research was to assess the effects of exercise interventions on symptoms of depression and anxiety. The authors conducted a review of previous research around exercise, depression, and anxiety. Included studies had to examine the effects of exercise-based interventions on symptoms of anxiety or depression in an adult population with a depression or anxiety disorder diagnosis. In total, the authors used data from nine previous studies.
Exercise-based intervention groups had a large reduction of depressive symptoms compared to non-exercise control groups in several included studies. The evidence for aerobic exercise as an effective treatment for depression was the most robust, with one meta-analysis including 11 trials finding significant reduction in depression symptoms. There was also evidence that yoga and tai chi reduced symptoms of depression, but the studies with this finding used varying methods and measures. While the authors report consistent findings that exercise reduces depression symptoms, issues with publication bias and methodological rigor of the included studies makes calculating the size of this reduction difficult.
Some included studies reported reduced symptoms of anxiety after exercise-based interventions. However, this evidence was less consistent. The authors note that a broad review examining both depression and anxiety symptoms reported reduced anxiety, but when examining only participants with an anxiety disorder diagnosis exercise-based interventions were no better than controls. This means exercise-based interventions may be more effective in reducing anxiety symptoms in people with a depression diagnosis compared to those with an anxiety disorder diagnosis.
This research had several limitations. Most of the included studies were rated low quality. Included studies used varying measures of depression and anxiety, examined different clinical settings, and had populations with significantly different characteristics. This made calculating a single exercise-based intervention effect on depression and anxiety symptoms difficult. Reporting of safety data, adverse events, worsening symptoms, and reasons for discontinuation were inconsistent between included studies.
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Delattre, B., Buckman, J. E. J., Harmer, C. J., & Murphy, S. E. (2026). The effects of a salsa dance intervention in young people with mild to moderately severe depressive symptoms. Psychological Medicine, 56. (Link)
Xing, Z. (2026). Effects of dance movement therapy and other dance-related interventions on depressive symptoms: A meta-analysis of evidence in the past decade. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 276(4), 1505–1519. (Link)
Gao, Y., Zhang, J., Ma, J., & Lyu, Z. (2026). Exercise interventions are most consistently supported for depressive disorders: An umbrella review of diagnosed depressive and anxiety disorders. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 17. (Link)
