Dancing Through Burnout

Harnessing the Power of Dance to Complete Your Stress Cycle

After eight years of dancing together at Motivated Movers we know one thing to be true: that dance is a powerful tool for every body, not just the trained dancer. So when the pandemic began we had one goal — to keep our community dancing through the uncertainty. We immediately transitioned to offering live virtual classes, determined to make sure that the tool of dance was available to anyone who needed it. Within months our community expanded exponentially. Dancers from 32 countries around the globe were tuning in week after week to dance in community. It was remarkable.

It also piqued our curiosity. Why were so many people, many of whom had little to no dance training, turning to dance in a time when the world was flipped on its head and everything felt stressful and uncertain? Until recently, we didn’t have a concrete answer to that question. But between our lived experiences on the dance floor and groundbreaking new research, we now understand that dance is a key component in helping everyone move through and combat stress.

Because dance is one of the most powerful tools we have in navigating and combating stress.

At Motivated Movers we have witnessed this happen time and time again. Whether it be together in person, or dancing alone together through Zoom, we always leave better than when we started. But the question of “why?” still lingers. What is it about dance specifically that creates such a shift in us and how we’re feeling?

In search of an answer to this question, we asked our community how they feel when they finish one of our dance classes. Here are a few of the responses we received:

“So beyond happy.”

“I feel empowered to keep moving forward in small ways.”

“Grounded, alive, bubbly, clear.”

“Free!”

“Energized, euphoric, and alive.”

“Fantastic! And happy!”

“After a dance class I feel ultimate joy.”

“I feel utterly and completely happy in all capacities.”

It was amazing to read these responses and hear how much of an impact dance was making on our community of beginner dancers. But we still wanted to understand why. Why was it possible for someone to walk into class feeling exhausted and burnt out, and within an hour, leave feeling energized, euphoric, and ready to keep moving forward with their life?

That is when we discovered “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” by Emily Nagoski PhD and Amelia Nagoski DMA. Their book breaks down the research that explains how stress lives in our bodies and how vital it is for us to complete our personal stress cycles. This combination of synthesized research and real-life stories helps us understand that when we complete our stress cycles, stress leaves our body and signals to our brain that our body is a safe place to live again.

The really incredible thing about this? The proven methods used to complete our stress cycles are the very things we exercise in our dance classes. Now we have an answer to the burning question of why so many people were and are making time for dance during a global pandemic. Why? Because dance is one of the most powerful tools we have in navigating and combating stress.

Let’s dive deeper to understand why.

To ensure stress leaves our bodies, we have to complete what is known as the stress cycle. When we move through and complete this cycle we stay healthy. The stress cycle has three phases:

1. Being triggered by something really stressful.
2. Everything our body feels because of that trigger [heart pounding, palms sweating, wanting to run away, wanting to fight, exhaustion, feeling completely overwhelmed etc.]
3. Stress leaving our body so we feel safe and calm again.

The incredible thing about this is that completing our stress cycle is a completely different process than dealing with the things that cause us stress. This means that we do not have to deal with and solve everything in our life that is causing us stress in order to complete our stress cycle and have stress leave our body.

There are 8 proven methods that Emily and Amelia Nagoski break down as ways to complete the stress cycle; 5 of the methods(in bold) are tools we actively use in every single Motivated Movers dance class. The proven methods are:

1. Movement
2. Imagination
3. Creative Self-Expression
4. Breathing
5. A Big Ol’ Cry
6. A Big Ol’ Laugh
7. Connection
8. Sleep

First, we have Movement. Movement is the single most efficient strategy for completing the stress response cycle. When you move your body for 20–60 minutes, long enough to get yourself breathing deeply, you are telling your brain that you have successfully survived and that your body is a safe place to live again. As Nagoski tells us, your body doesn’t know what “filing your taxes” or “resolving interpersonal conflict through rational problem solving” means. You have to speak its language, and its language is body language.

Dance is a more powerful choice than common physical activities like going for a run or taking an exercise class when it comes to completing the stress cycle, because dance incorporates two of the other key methods used to move through the stress cycle — Imagination and Creative Self-Expression. The research tells us that the use of Imagination and Creative Self-Expression gives us more energy, excitement, and enthusiasm, as well as the ability to move through big emotions.

Lastly, we have connection and breathing. Motivated Movers hosts all of its virtual classes inside of a zoom room because of connection. When you come into one of our classes, regardless of whether you choose to dance with your camera on or off, you are in a room connecting with other humans. We also begin every class with deep, collective breath, giving ourselves the time and space to come together and to transition from what we were just doing into our class time together.

This is important because connecting to others is a signal of safety to our brain, and breathing both deeply and slowly downregulates our stress response, making it a great place to start when working through stress.

Dance class gives us ample opportunity to complete stress cycles that are building inside our bodies every single day.

Thanks to the research compiled by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, we now understand that through the combination of Movement, Imagination, Creative Self-Expression, Connection, and Breathing, a Motivated Movers dance class gives us ample opportunity to complete stress cycles that are building inside our bodies every single day. It now makes perfect sense as to why it is possible for someone to walk into class feeling exhausted and burnt out, and within an hour, leave feeling energized, euphoric, and ready to keep moving forward with their life — because through the course of class they have successfully moved through and completed their stress cycle.

We all experience stress on a consistent basis and understand how frustrating it can be. And with so many of our stress levels skyrocketing due to the global pandemic, it is remarkable that we now have scientifically backed data to help us navigate and combat that stress every single day.

If you are feeling stressed and you don’t know where to turn, why not choose dance? Turn on some music you love and begin dancing. Or, join us for a Motivated Movers dance class! You will complete stress cycles you didn’t even know were unfinished.

BURNOUT is for women (or anyone) who has felt overwhelmed and exhausted by everything they have to do, yet still worried they weren’t doing “enough.” We highly recommend you take a deeper dive into this work by Emily Nagoski Ph.D. and Amelia Nagoski DMA.