Using Dance to Reduce Stress

We all have stress in our lives and we all have different ways to try to deal with our stress. Some ways are more effective than others, but dance is a proven way to deal with stress. Obviously dance helps you maintain your physical health, but it can also help you maintain your mental health. Grant it, dance cannot cure your stress since sadly there is no cure for stress, but dance can give your a release from you stress.

There have been many studies done that show that dance can be good for a person's mental health. By gaining self-esteem through learning and performing the dances, people are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, or other stress related problems.
Here is a good example of a study that shows how dance helps teenage girls relive stress.

By dancing, you are able to express all of your emotions which can give you a release. 
You don't have to be good at dancing! You can get your friends together and dance around to some of your favorite music, or even dance around by yourself! No matter how you do it, just get into it and have fun! Just letting lose and not caring what you look like can help you relax more and let the stress melt away.

This video is an amazing example of people dancing to relieve stress. They aren't professional dancers at all. They dance however they want, where ever they want to relieve their stress. They don't let the judgments of others stop them, they just do their thing.

I encourage you to try this some time. You can do an old routine, come up with your own, or just dance crazy. As long as you are moving and having fun, I promise you it will help you relieve stress.

Trusting Your Partner

When it comes to dancing with a partner, trust is one of the most important things! You have to trust they know the dance just as well as you do and when it comes to lifts, you have to trust they know what they are doing and they are going to catch you! It's scary for girls to think they are not going to be on solid ground and their is a chance they will be dropped. For guys get scared at the idea of dropping their girls which can make them doubt themselves.
No matter if you are learning lifts for a show, competition, or just for fun, you need to practice. Do walk-throughs  where you don't do the lift full out but you figure out the motions of it.

  To prevent mistakes that can end in injury, you need to keep your focus and have a safe environment. Make sure your mind is focused on all aspects of the lift. If you are the guy, understand where your girl is supposed to go and if something goes wrong you need to think fast and either correct the mistake or find a safe way to get your girl to the ground. The girls also need to know where they need to be and being doing everything they can to assist the guy. In contrast to what a lot of people think, the girls have a lot to do with lifts. It's not just guys throwing girls in the air.

This is my first attempt of this lift with my friend Jake. I trust him completely and I know he would do anything to make sure I wouldn't get hurt.
We are practicing in a very open environment and obviously we grabbed a few pillows because we knew I would probably be landing on the ground.


Another good idea when starting lifts is to have a spotter. This is where someone stands beside the people doing the lifts and can assist if something goes wrong.

While lifts can be dangerous they also can be a lot of fun! The feeling of nailing the lift you have been working through is an amazing feeling!

Dance is infinite

There is no better feeling than standing in the middle of the stage as the spotlight turns on and the music fades in and you start to perform the dance you spent countless hours trying to perfect. You get to the part you have gone over and over but could never get just right and it goes perfectly. You finish the dance and standing there in your final pose you hear the audience erupt in a roar of applause. Looking into the crowd you see all the people who have been supporting you through the whole process. Those are the moments you worked so hard for. Those are the moments that will stay with you forever.

I know that feeling very well. I have been dancing ever since I was 3. I have been involved in many different types of dance such as tap, jazz, salsa, lyrical, contemporary, swing, ballet, and point. In fact, this picture is a picture of me my senior year of high school, doing a ballet dance. I played the fairy Temperance in Sleeping Beauty. I took lessons in my home town at a little studio above a Chines restaurant from kindergarten up until I graduated high school. After high school I started to attend Northwest Missouri State, which is where I am still currently enrolled, and I am dancing in the Northwest Dance Company.

There are so many uses to dance. It can be used to inspire, entertain, tell a story, give someone a voice, relieve stress, and so much more. There are also so many components to dance: the type of dance, the moves, the order of the moves, the amount of dancers, costumes, music, setting, reasons for the dance. There are so many components and different parts to dance that there is no way I would be able to list all of them and even if I could, its nothing compared to seeing the real thing live.

Dance has become a bigger part of pop culture with many different dace movies and TV shows.  It used to only be thought of as girls in tutus prancing around on a stage but there is more to it and I hope people can see that. If not, I would like to show that there is so much to it. Dance is infinite.