Why Do You Need a Dance Party at Home Right Now
Who else is a little nervous now? There are times these days when I feel so overwhelmed with anxiety, frustration, anger, or frustration that I can’t do anything other than sit down with everything I feel and allow myself to feel it .
And then I get up, plug in my headphones and start dancing.
I got this idea from Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book Burnout: The Secret to Breaking Out of the Stress Cycle . The book explains that our body needs to complete a so-called “stress response cycle” in order to truly relax and get the rest we need to prevent burnout.
To quote the Nagoski sisters:
[…] this may be the most important idea in the book: dealing with stress is a separate process from the activities that stress you. To deal with stress , you need to complete a cycle .
How to end the cycle? I don’t want to go into the biomechanics of all of this (you really should read the book), but the short version is that stressful situations flood our bodies with everything from adrenaline to cortisol – and if we don’t do something to wipe it all out the extra chemicals they are left behind, raising our heart rate, suppressing our thought processes, and disrupting our digestion and sleep.
One of the best ways to complete the stress response cycle is through vigorous physical activity. To quote Nagoski and Nagoski again:
Remember, your body doesn’t understand what “filing a tax return” or “resolving interpersonal conflict through rational problem solving” means. However, he knows what jumping up and down is. Speak his language – and his language is body language .
[…]
Physical activity is what tells your brain that your body has successfully survived the threat and is now a safe place to live. Physical activity is the single most effective strategy for completing the stress response cycle .
There are many ways to get physically active, some of which are no longer appropriate if you are trying to practice good social distancing, and some are difficult to implement when you are also trying to work remotely and / or caring for family members. I can’t, for example, go out for a 30-minute run while I still have a deadline, but I can take a five-minute break for a dance party.
Incidentally, this is one of the techniques recommended by Nagoski for breaking the stress cycle. They suggest dancing to Beyoncé, but you can choose any music you like; I prefer video game remixes. You can dance alone, you can dance with your kids, you can involve your roommates – after all, dancing is a great way to bond with the people around you. You don’t even need to be a good dancer; just be as physically active as you can, and long enough for your heart to beat faster.
The goal is to exhaust yourself to the point that your breathing will naturally slow down and become deeper and more relaxed, because that is how you know when the stress response cycle – at least temporarily – is over.
And then, maybe later in the day, you can do it all over again.