Dance, dance, dance!
June 2022
Dear Kaibigan,
We leave May behind and enter June, a month typically associated with summer and playtime in the USA. I’m thinking that by this time of the year you and I have experienced stressful situations, been exhausted by maintaining our responsibilities, and been inspired by ideas we see in the media and hear from friends and family. We’ve also witnessed in the news the devastating images and stories on multiple mass shootings here in America where lives, young and old, are ended too suddenly and unjustly.
Violence surrounds us. Violence is in the form of restricting lives, human rights and daily living through fear, legislation, and control by those with wealth and power. Violence marches in wars fought in Africa, Asia and Europe. Violence encroaches in our communities through the silence of domestic violence and intimate partner violence. Violence resides within our schools, workplace and virtual world through bullying, harassment and microaggressions. Violence runs through the veins of the human species and flows as discrimination, prejudice and bias.
How do we co-exist with violence? This is a perpetual issue we must continuously entertain, knowing that answers will differ for each of us and change over time. For now, Laura and I want to offer one way we can manage the impact of and the chronic stress violence and our day-to-day responsibilities inflict in our lives. We suggest that you use June to engage with your recreational wellness and allow yourself to play through dance.
Why be playful and dance when there are terrible events happening? Good and bad stress get absorbed by our minds and bodies and manifest uniquely for us. Stress over time lowers our immune system’s ability to fight off infections and perform appropriately to keep us healthy. Do you want to contribute to the malfunction of your immune system as COVID continues to ravage people’s health and lives? Chronic stress can lead to burnout and mental health conditions such as clinical depression, anxiety and PTSD. Playing and having fun can boost our mood and help our bodies to manage stress, including the stress from the violence we endure.
Our physiological fight-and-flight response system kick in when our minds interpret a threat to our safety, for instance a violent image or experience. Once this system is activated, cortisol and adrenaline get released to prepare us to “fight” and react to the threatening stimuli. Often called the “stress hormone,” cortisol causes an increase in your heart rate and blood pressure. It alters your immune system responses and suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system, and growth processes. Normally, your biological relaxation response system kicks in to shut down the stress response as soon as the amount of cortisol in your body gets to a certain level. This shutdown system doesn’t always work accurately when we’ve sustained prolonged high cortisol levels, or it could be that you inherited a shutdown system that takes longer to activate. Our bodies continue to release cortisol when our shutdown system doesn’t work as it should. After a few days of elevated cortisol, we begin to feel tired, helpless, and perhaps experience depression-like symptoms.
You need to regularly release, aka de-stress, the tension stored in your body caused by violence and stress to help your relaxation response system to kick in. You can do this by doing an activity that allows your body to release endorphins (neurotransmitters that are released by our brain to alleviate pain and anxiety and promote pleasure and happiness) rather than cortisol. There are many ways to naturally boost your endorphin levels, such as exercising, acupuncture, and engaging in creative activities. A fun, free and light-hearted way to de-stress and care for yourself naturally is by dancing!
Our pasalubong, offering, for this month is the invitation to consider the many roles and benefits of dancing and our request to dance:
Dance for leisure and catharsis
Dancing is a way to enjoy being in the present moment. You focus on the music that you’re dancing to, and you let yourself be intoxicated by the beats and rhythms. Your troubles, your worries, your wishes, and your attention on responsibilities are stored away when you dance. You’re able to release emotional tension, and dancing can restore and refresh your mood and spirit. This same catharsis experience can occur even as a spectator. Recall the thrill in watching a dance performance or your delight in observing others dance. Your body unconsciously begins to move as you watch. Whether it’s clapping along and cheering or a slight sway. You move. Each dance, each step, each movement is for leisure. A release of tension, allowing the endorphins to fill the newly vacated spaces in your body.
Dance for social connections and friendship
Dancing leads to social connections – interactions with strangers, deepening attraction to love interests, a glee in voyeurism in watching dancers perform. Your participation in society increases through dance. You expand your social network, live and in person! No need for Meta (aka Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and other platforms to do this for you. Take for instance Laura’s experience in salsa dancing. She started taking lessons and her repeated exposure to dancing with the same people and in the same environment went from meeting strangers to forming acquaintances in her salsa group to getting to know others well enough to form friendships and spend time outside of class. It’s tricky to make new friends as an adult. The structure of school or a play date to bring people together is gone. The familiarity and solidarity we experienced in school can be inherited by settings such as a dance class and group. You build trust in others who become your partners, leaning on them to lead or follow. You share the secret of clumsy movements as you learn the steps. You speak the same language of the dance and accompanying music. Dance is a universal language that allows you to express yourself with your body and facial expressions regardless of your native or primary language. Dance in all countries is recognized, understood and lures others to connect. Dance also opens you to a mutual reveal of your and others’ identity.
Dance for intimacy
Dancing satisfies our need for emotional and physical intimacy. One does not need to be in a romantic relationship to dance with others. Sometimes we dance with family, friends and strangers. You can also in solo dance create intimacy with yourself. A common link across these relations is the gentle physical touch and comradery in dance. Do you remember this past February I wrote to you about how hugging can enhance our emotional wellness because it involves touch? Well, the physical sensation of touch when we dance is also an intense way of expressing our feelings and causes our brain to release oxytocin and dopamine. You view your dance partners and yourself in a positive way, and you feel pleasure within yourself as you dance with them or alone. We feel emotionally and physically safe and affirmed when we dance.
Dance for body acceptance
Dancing can be a gateway to body acceptance, treating your body with respect, and appreciating it for what it can do rather than how it looks. Dancing allows your body to move as it is in the moment whether to a song, to an instrument, or to the music in your thoughts. The act of dancing recreationally allows you to let go of preconceived notions on how your body ought to or should move and look like as you move. Consider dancing as an act of self-care that treats your body as vital to your ability to live your life. You abandon your criticism of your body parts, essentially you. Instead, you accept with gratitude its strength to change shape, twist and glide in dance.
Dance for culture
Dancing is a form of cultural storytelling. It passes on cultural values and traditions of a tribe, ethnic group, community, and country. There are traditions in folk dances that are conveyed by the movements, clothing, jewelry, and props. There are dance rituals involved in honoring Gods and Goddesses, expressing gratitude for blessings, asking for help from spiritual beings, and demonstrating courtship to extend lineage and ensuring one’s group lives on. Dancing can pay respect to our ancestors and celebrate our heritage. Dancing can unite those within a diaspora and rekindle love for a common home.
Dancing is self-care to de-stress. Dancing is playing. Dancing is connecting to your cultural roots and with others. Dancing is intimacy. Dancing is learning about yourself. Dancing is appreciating your body. Dancing is celebrating you. So, kaibigan…
Dance. Dance. Dance!
Angel, on behalf of The Giving Well