Why you should be dancing! 

If a sly kitchen dance makes you feel good, moving in time with others is even better.

Humans are one of the few species who dance, and while some of us would rather poke our eye out with a stick than dance in public, we're fighting against an instinct that is hardwired into us from the day we are born.

"Rhythmic movement is very much part of what makes humans tick," Caroline Williams writes in Move!

In fact, dance is so hardwired into us that, left to our own devices, we all dance at the same speed - about 120 beats a minute. This is the case no matter how tall we are - and it's probably no coincidence that it's the same speed that hits the "sweet spot" when we are walking.

"It's like our natural rhythm, which sort of blows my mind a little bit."

As it happens, 120 beats a minute is the dominant rhythm in a lot of pop music. And the way we dance to pop music is very similar to the way people from other cultures dance to different kinds of music - stamping our feet on the floor while punching our hands in the air and nodding our heads in time.

"If there is one form of dance that you could do anywhere in the world without looking too out of place, this is surely it," writes Williams. 

Dancing can serve a similar role to brisk walking in boosting blood to the brain. But dancing can do other things, too. While jumping about in the kitchen on your own to pop greats like Stevie Wonder's Superstition - judged the most danceable tune out of 148 played to student volunteers in a University of California experiment in 2012 - will make you feel good, so will dancing together with others.

In fact, moving in time with others - even at a more sedate pace than that of the average pop song - seems to be good for our souls. Williams says this is probably because it helps blur the lines between us and the people around us. That in turn draws us together emotionally and physically and makes us more likely to co-operate with each other.

Toddlers who are bounced on someone's knee in time to music, for example, are much more likely to pick up something that has been dropped onto the floor and hand it back than toddlers who are bounced in a non rhythmic way.

"There's something about moving in time with other people that makes us feel closer together and makes us care more about each other."

Caroline Williams author "Move"