This is a novel. You've been warned ;) No, really. I wanted to be thorough. there is a list of what will be in it and you are welcome to jump around; but this isn't mainstream info because it was not mainstream information that began to recover my personal dance injuries.
Forgive me my weaknesses, if you know something new please comment (no professional knows everything and I'm not a nutritionist even though I've studied it on and off for 17 years). Neither am I a grammar extraordinaire or an excellent speller. So, read with the recognition that you are purusing the professional thoughts of a bodyworker and eternal student who is willing to display imperfection in order to serve you. Please, do comment on grammar, spelling and content and I'll review it. I could always use help there!
Okay, to the details of Dancer's Depression or "Staleness"
There is an unfortunate myth in dance that if you take a break you will get left behind. I fell for it...and got severely injured. I was pulled out of every dance number in my Senior show in High school. Good thing that isn't the end of the world; but it wasn't fun.
So? What are they symptoms (that Pam Pam Swenson Musil taught in the dance kinesiology course at BYU) to notice?
Well, you aren't going to want to dance. At. All. You'll feel like it doesn't bring you joy in the least.
Now, the symptoms of watching my husband go through dancer's depression. His face became gaunt, he lost hair, he didn't want to dance in class or perform, so he did it out of duty. At the semester I challenged him and said he could only take hard classes or stay on the tour team. After much internal debate he realized that he knew better about dance training that the director, the practice schedules were unhealthy, and that he would find another way to fulfill his desire to dance. This took quite a lot of time for him to decide, for dance is in his very fibre and he had worked to be on this tour team with all his heart.
Some of the things that *can* bring on the onset of dancers depression:
Not eating enough
Not eating nutrient dense foods (I am not a doctor or nutritionist, so this definitely hasn't been evaluated by the FDA, nor would they like me telling you how awesome raw milk is or that I eat my own cookie dough!)
Not sleeping enough
Dancing more than you have conditioned yourself for
Dancing year-round without a 6 week break.
What can you do?
1. Eat Healthy
2. Sleep adequately. If you are dancing a lot that may include 15 minute power naps throughout the day.
3. Pace yourself. If you break down you'll miss out on more opportunities. Be smart so you can dance for a lifetime. Sometimes that does mean overriding the advice of your dance teacher. Remember your teacher may or may not have the education to protect your body and you are the one that gets the consequences of disregarding the warning signals that can go on. Please, be respectful, though.
4. TAKE, steal, require, demand a SIX WEEK BREAK. Sorry to type yelling, but italics are unavailable to stress this.
5. Get bodywork. I know, I know, I'm a bodywork. Shameless plug, right? Wrong. I was severely injured by more than one dance course where the teacher didn't recognize real warning signs and I assumed the teacher knew best. :D
*1. Eat nutrient dense meals that contain
alkaline protein, free range eggs (the good kind are around $7 a dozen) raw milk or goats milk (ideally raw) Probiotics (Kefir, florify) with at least 5-7 strains, alkaline &/or fermented grains,
Eat until you are full, chew very well, and stop when you are full. Dr. Winden, at BYU, explained that most people have turned off the mechanism that tells us when we are full. It usually goes off about ten minutes after we are legitimately full and if we eat too fast we'll miss that. Then we'll stretch our stomachs and our bodies will put on the extra food as food storage. You can be a very lean person and have a BMI that includes too much body fat. Looks are not what we pay attention to, they are deceiving.
BAKED POTATO "One baked potato has more potassium than an entire bunch of bananas" Dr. Zanandrea told us (3 time olympic athlete). Keep the skins washed and on. Just under the skin is packed with nutrients.
---Sea Salt or Himilayan Pink Salt--- They cost less than Real salt and they contain the variety of minerals that are needed for proper hydration. FACT: If you aren't eating adequate real salts you are going to be dehydrated. Unfortunately most people are dehydrated or have hypertension because they eat white refined table salt. :( No bueno.
If you want to improve your iodine intake there are seasonings that have sea vegetables included in them, or you can start to keep sea vegetables in your diet. You can also purchase iodine drops and add them to your salt. I haven't done the research to know how much salt to one drop; but I do know that iodine is crucial to the bending of proteins in your thyroid in order to absorb your protein rich foods.
Greens of variety. Don't only go for the dark green, go for cucumbers, celery, kale, spinach, swiss chard, peas, iceburg, romaine. Shake it up or you'll get kidney stones. If I am remembering properly it is because of the oxalic acid content; but don't quote me on that one. :P
Other vegetables in variety (though tomatoes are technically a fruit, I'll include them here), darks and lights. If you focus only on yams and other really dark colored beauties and combine it with dark leafy greens you're probably going to get kidney stones. They aren't soft balls either, they are sharp knobby calcium structures of torture. I have heard women say they are harder to pass than delivering a baby. :(
Fruits. Real fruit, with the peel (when possible) or pith. You want all that fiber to help your body slow down the digestion properly. You also eat less because your body will have time to respond with the full mechanism. Fruit is sugar; but the fiber makes you process it differently.
Nutrient dense sugars. I was privy to a 1/2 hour call with a specialist on sugar in CA several years back. He was in So. Cal. but this was before I knew I would share my wealth of knowledge in writing. Sorry, you'll have to look him up and guess which one he is. :/ Anyway, in the Q & A someone asked him about using honey or maple syrup. His response was that his preference was that people use those sugars. They have a stronger flavor and so they use less of it.
We use DARK brown sugar, molasses, raw honey (I have the bee sting to prove some of it came from my hive :D ), and starting next week we are getting a year supply of molasses from amber to dark. The vendor explained that there was no nutrient difference between the three...but I'm skeptical. After all, they have different chemical compounds during the three seasons of harvest from the same trees; but I haven't done chemical tests or looked up the validity of his statement. They were all delicious.
When you replace your sugars with Brown sugar, honey and molasses realize that they will need to be slightly altered. When I switch in honey and molasses, for corn syrup, I do about a 5-1 ratio of honey to molasses. Molasses is a strong flavor, and so is honey, but if you mix them you get more of a brown sugar flavor. It isn't an exact science. I eyeball it. I use this in my marshmallow (we make our own), and my caramel recipes. Maybe I'll upload those recipes to soyfreefood.blogspot.com for you. I can make that a higher priority. It still has some great recipes. Another great resource is "the Naturally Sweet Baker" which I almost gave away when I wasn't crunchy/foodie yet.
If you are purchasing your breads and tortillas you'll be avoiding flour tortillas and most brands of bread because they contain soy. The better pre-made breads are going to be sprouted whole grains, ideally a variety of grains, and hopefully include grains like Kamut, hard white wheat, spelt and so forth.
Second best would still be whole grain and ideally hard white wheat.
Sucrose is what bees use to make honey, so I use it in moderation in my Sustain. It's the best pre-made electrolyte drink I've found for when I don't want to eat a pinch of salt and drink water. Use in moderation, for your body want's calories when it is getting something sweet.
Zylitol is also a fake sugar I'm open to in small doses. Really small doses. if you replace your sugar with zylitol it will start to cause problems, just like eating too many greens. We only have it in our mints and toothpaste. Small amounts okay, a cup in your food!?, not okay.
I almost forgot fats!
Olive oil is great for making bread, heating up food, or as a half and half ingredient for cookies and such. I prefer the stronger flavor in the extra virgin. Only purchase if in a dark container. If the container is clear the nutrients have not been protected.
Coconut oil, unprocessed, is great for baking, cooking at high enough temperatures to fry donuts and scones, and holds its structure well. It is also another very healthy oil.
Kerigold, Amish or any grassfed butter. I pretty much don't eat butter or cream unless there is ZERO hydrogenation and the animal is grass fed. It is full of omega 3's and your body utilizes it instead of storing it.
We prefer the free range chicken and grass fed beef for the same reason. We don't really eat a lot of fish, even wild caught, for there is more evidence that the ocean is 1. polluted with microplastics 2. the ocean is getting so depleted it is affecting the eco-system of the rest of the planet's animals and plants and 3. most fish/crustaceans are near the shore and are filters for all the pollution. The exact breed of clam in Seattle is dark blue because of the pollution and a clam of the same breed in New Zealand is white with only thin blue stripes. Makes a difference. (source- Josh Woodcook, traveler and master herbalist)
You need fat for brain development and for your fascia, so eat healthy fats, please.
I have protein powders, amino powder, protein and fat burning bars, and so forth that I trust. You'll have to message me so I don't literally write a novel in this post. ;)
AVOID:
***1. processed sugar. We all know that white table sugar, Agave and high fructose corn syrup are bad for your kidneys and/or your liver. Just stop it.
Oh, and corn syrup. Just stop. Make it yourself. English toffee is real butter and dark brown sugar (basically) and almond roca you just make it it into rolls with almonds crushed on the outside. Caramel, fudge, and marshmallows can all be made with the honey/molasses mixture as the replacement. Just take the hard on your liver corn syrup out. If that means only buying candy like Panda licorice then so be it. (The cherry with Enjoy Life chocolate chips is a healthier version of chocolate covered cherries. Your're welcome! ;) )
1a. processed sugar. Anytime you process a fruit you break down it's fibrous structure and make it closer to straight white sugar. Applesauce you probably should look at as eating sugar. Smoothies are worse than eating whole fruits but better than a heated sugars. We drink them with raw milk, brown sugar and try to make them a bit chunky. Still, the more you process that fruit the more you lose and the faster you absorb it and spike your insulin levels. That said, we eat processed sugars like panda licorice, soy free chocolate chips, and home-made candy in moderation. If you have a fabulous recipe for taffy send it my way. I'm still on the lookout.
1b. fake sugars. The top one that irks me is not even aspartame, most already avoid that. No, it is Stevia and Truvia. Stevia can be used responsibly when combined with proteins; but it will tell your body to have an insulin response. Truvia isn't even good for you at all. :P There are more, just eat real sugars.
2. Soy, which inhibits protein absorption, Thyroid function, extrogen and testosterone...and that is what the soy companies tell you. We also noticed a nueurological dysfunction of slowed thought process and general feeling less well when we ate soy. (Not even just me, with the allergy, Brian who had no allergy noticed this after avoiding it for only a 1 1/2 years)
3. Trans fats ie. mono & diglycerides. These can be soy without labeling them. Rude. I spoke to a friend, Ginger whose study is that of nutrition, and she explained that even though there is no specific scientific number eating a trans fat takes far more energy to burn a gram of. So, imagine it takes you, say, 7 calories to burn a gram of sugar. Now, imagine you eat 1 gram of trans fats. That would take some astronomical amount of calories (maybe 150 ish) to burn a SINGLE gram. It's terrible.
So, no margarine, no crisco, no partially hydrogenated anything. Stop. Stop now. When you aren't dancing as much it will show all over your body that you packed on the trans fats.
4. When I remember the new name for hfcs I'll type it in here. That irks me. grrr.
5. White bread, white flour, white sugar.
6. Genetically modified foods. Just avoid them. So much to that statement.
7. Grains sprayed with a dessicant.
8. Canola oil, corn oil and soy oil. So much genetic modification that it is no longer bioavailable and beautifully available...and soy is just bad anyway.
**2. Sleep. Please.
Children, up to age 18 (but possibly to 21/23) need 10 hours of sleep. 10! If that means they/you need naps during the day, then do it. If your desire to grow healthy bones, fascia, nerves, muscles and digestion so that you perform at your peak...then sleep. Go to bed early and get up early. You grow when you sleep. Your skin breathes when you sleep. You unwind fascia when you sleep.
Just sleep.
Adults need anywhere from 6-8 hours of sleep a night. It varies from size, level of activity, and so forth. If I get 7 hours of sleep at night I feel optimal in energy; but if I become dance active I definitely need a 1-2 hour nap daily. As a mother I get random amounts of interrupted sleep at night, so I still take a 1-2 hour nap with my toddler almost daily. :D
Dr. Z (Zanandrea) taught us how to power nap. If you are exhausted and you can't take a full nap either sit without anything crossing or lay on the floor without anything crossing. (I prefer you put your palms down, she preferred palms up. It's a fascial preference for me.) Now, think of nothing. Men have an easier time with this. Women: think of blackness and whenever a thought comes to your head go back to blackness. It helps a lot. What you are doing is giving your neurons a rest, your brain needs this break. Every 5 minutes will give you approximately an hour of energy.
***3. Pace yourself. In the end God gave you your body. It is unique. If you deal with hypoglycemia (like me), or diabetes, or candida, or anything else you're going to have to adapt how you eat.\
If you have an ache, pain, or a sharp pain then go to a doctor AND a bodyworker. Doctor's can do Xrays and check for fractures but they are terrible, absolutely clueless, when it comes to muscles and fascia (unless they are a surgeon, who knows about the fascial lines).
No doctor, dance teacher, bodyworker can know what is going on with your body better than you. If the bodyworker is pushing too hard TELL THEM, so they can either let you know that it is releasing (which hurts) or back out (because your body isn't going to let go). If the dance teacher gets mad because you sit down to check and see if you caused a real injury? Talk to them after class, apologize for disrupting and explain what you were doing. If they are still behaving in an ignorant manner **get a new teacher** this is your body they don't care about and that's a problem. I did this once, for the teacher was still irate that I would sit down during leaps to ascertain what happened to my ankle.
Please, please, please do not go from not dancing for 4 years (no, teaching doesn't count), and start dancing 3-4 hours a day. You will burn out.
***3a. For the record, during youth children pudge out before they grow taller. Avoid being annoyed by this and know you're about to grow! Yay! Your bones will then grow first, causing pain, then your muscles and neurons, which also hurts. This takes 18-24 months and should let you know that it is time to train symmetrically and back off on stunts. You'll thank me later. Professional schools in Europe follow this practice to produce better dancers.
***3b. For Dance Instructors. Please back off two weeks before performance. Your dancer needs to build up fight and flight nerves and a reserve of nutrients. When you get to dress rehearsal night only do ONE practice. That doesn't include the Tech, which is fine to mark anyway, so the tech's know who is going where. They don't really care about watching the show a zillion times. Pam did this, only one rehearsal thing. Consistently it worried her that there were a million mistakes; but her conscience couldn't keep her holding up children until 11:00 pm. Well, they did far better in the performances. Don't wear your dancers out. Please. This isn't the end of the world and you are probably not working with professional dancers anyway. If you are? Well, still, be smart and don't wear your dancers out.
****4. TAKE A SIX WEEK BREAK EVERY YEAR. If you are dancing 7-10 hours a week go down to 1/2 an hour to an hour if you want to stretch and do a little yoga (avoid child's pose and any other pose that presses your heels to your glutes or puts you in a W sit), go hiking, or do kickboxing, learn to speedwalk (to avoid jolting from jogging and running), just take a break. Otherwise your body will begin to feel the demands of consistent output in the same way.
If you did overdo it then take a break for a year or two. There's a lot of benefit in cross training, gaining experience, finding other hobbies. Dancers have the greatest impact when you can detect maturity in the dancer's whole being. My favorite dancers to watch are parents. The maturity, temperance, ability, strength, weakness and wisdom come through the tiniest movements and without effort or consciousness. Watching that to me is like a spring day. Simply breathtaking. (I am reminiscing a single number from a concert I attended recently.
*****5.Getting regular bodywork, (fascial work is the most efficient), will help your body unwind. This is not figurative, either. You have specific fascial pathways that build up and make it easier to do some movements while it also makes others more difficult. In the recent Olympics in Brazil there were several athletes with a Rolfer working on them there. NOT a massage therapist, someone who practiced Ida Rolf PhD's method of Structural Integration.
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Fascial work gives you more mobility, reduces pain, improves circulation, and if you are emotionally open to it you'll see your pecs opening, your back strengthening, your posture improving, your feet holding you up, your arches lifting, your neck aligning, your anterior pelvic tilt disappearing.
I love Structural Integration, Flexibility and Kinesomatic Programming because they helped me overcome what I had thought was chronic injury and then improved my ability to move. I am able to do a better develope now, having not danced for four years consistently, that I ever had at BYU while being a dance major. I had improved the neural response and the physical ability of my muscles by releasing the inhibiting emotions and fascia.
You may be curious why I would include emotions? Fascia is the largest organ to transport emotion, so it naturally holds our greatest fears, hatreds, jealousies, anxieties, addictions, abuse and so forth. When you stretch the fascia in the proper way the trauma releases. I have seem many SER's (somato emotion releases) on my table. So far they have included Shivering, chills, sudden blood sugar drops (I prepare for that one with water and mints), Sobbing, moaning, tears, nose itching, eyes twitching, hysterical laughing, laughing, a body part moving to "wiggle it out" such as a leg rotating and so forth. I'm sure there are more,
The only way you don't release is with negative emotions such as anger or jealousy. Those only bind the problem back to your body and the fascia refuses to release.
In my office I remind clients, no matter their religion, that praying is essential to them letting go. I pray for my clients while I work on them and I would love for them to call on The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, Allah, God, Heavenly Father, Mother Earth, Heavenly Mother, The Universe, The Creator of All That Is, the Tao, etc., in order to have the best possible outcome.
So, get bodywork. If you choose "deep tissue" you are likely to get an assortment included into Swedish. That will loosen muscles (not fascia), and move blood and lymph. Those are useful, and feel good for an hour. They do not have the same lasting results on posture, it is simply different in nature than fascial work.
I also love Asian medicines of Acupressure, Shiatsu, and Russian methods of Sports massage. These are both beneficial and can give you tools to do self work or have someone prep you/recover you from a performance.
Thanks for reading! I think I'll post this on the blog www.dancecore.us so it never gets fully lost in the feed. Please ask questions and give feedback, please. I am a much better bodyworker than an orator or writer. This is my weakness, a phobia I have been working to overcome for 20+ years. Also, I totally wrote this at 1:30 in the morning because an ER visit gave me benedryl and that put me out (I rarely take any kind of medication at all, so my response is more pronounced), and I woke up around 1:00 and couldn't go to sleep. It is now 3:30 and I can't profess to full functioning brain...chuckle!
Short version? Ask questions.
Some of my favorite sources are Dance Anatomy and Kinesiology, Clippinger
The Naturally Sweet Baker, Carrie Aura Maria Davis
Anything Dr. Ida Pauline Rolf wrote
Dance Kinesiology, Fitt
Weston A Price Foundation (for nutrition, though it is peer reviewed by doctors both for and against)
I'm afraid you won't have access to many of my textbooks for they were written and copyrighted for Steiner Education Group. If you ever get a peek they have amazing info! and each one has pages of source books.
Feelings Buried Alive Never Die, Karol Khun (I have only read excerpts and they have all been consistent with my findings in muscles. Muscles are honest critters.)
Dr. Zanandrea from BYU who taught flexibility
Ronald Nuttall, worked with Nasa as their athletic trainer for 25 years and then continued on to BYU and served me during my entire dance training
Pam Musil, BYU dance instructor and my Dance Kinesiology instructor
Ginger Stacey, amazing friend and Nutritionist? did I get that right?
Nicolle Buchanan, Certified Practitioner of Ida Rolf's Method of Structural Integration, (and my personal mentor of awesomeness), L.M.T., Just finished a degree in Sports Medicine? at the U
Kathy Thomas P.A. L.M.T. and the inspiration for me to become a bodyworker, as well as a favorite mentor for Russian and Pathology.
So many more. I wish I could give you all the education to prevent every injury. I guess you'll just have to travel to Provo, Utah to get ongoing awesomeness...! lol!
