How to Incorporate Rest into your Busy Dance Week

Rest can be put on the back burner when things get busy at dance. Especially on top of school and other activities, as the term goes on we tend to forget – however, rest is vital to sustaining ourselves as dancers. 

What is rest and why is it so important? Without rest, we may suffer from burnout, which can lead to injury, greater stress and poor performance.

Rest can be defined as anything that provides you with a break. It can be either mental or physical. If we do not provide our bodies with adequate rest, we risk suffering burnout.

Benefits of rest include:

• Rest allows time to restore the body and brain in order to better assimilate the movements. This improves our memory of choreography and muscle memory of performance.
• Dancers that allow for rest time suffer less from injury and overtraining.
• Rest aids muscle regeneration which can improve flexibility 

Ways to incorporate rest in your week include:

• Getting better sleep – try limiting screen time before bed or creating a night time routine that will calm you down if you have trouble sleeping. Aim for 8 hours of sleep.
• When practising, focus on quality of training over quantity. It is far more beneficial to perform lower numbers, but with correct technique.
• Don’t wait until you’re burned out to rest. The longer you wait to rest, the longer it can take to recover. Find a balance by making rest a designated part of your day.

Dance Factor is a Wollongong-based dance studio, offering classes in all styles for all ages and abilities. If you are interested in enrolling or trialling a class or have any general enquiries contact info@dancefactor.com.au.

Information cited from:

https://www.onedanceuk.org/programme/healthier-dancer-programme/industry-standards/dancers-need-rest-campaign/