Basic Needs Baseline: What Are Yours?
Dear dancers and parents,
Maslow's Needs Hierarchy
You may be familiar with this pyramid of Maslow's Needs; if not, you've certainly heard parents, teachers, and adults talk at length about the importance of sleep and food to your well-being.
And yet...when dancers come to me for support, it's surprising how often we discover together that one or more of their basic physical needs are not being met.
Today's post is to remind you of what these basic needs are and to encourage you to establish a Basic Needs Baseline for yourselves by asking:
What is my bottom line when it comes to my basic physical needs?
What do I need on a daily basis in order to move up the pyramid to the level of self-actualization, which is where my dancing lives?
Quick background on Maslow's Needs
In the 1940s, Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, theorized that human decision-making depends on a "hierarchy of needs" theory; the core "needs" are five and Maslow posited that they form the basis of human motivation.
The well-known pyramid above of "Maslow's Needs" has five levels with physiological needs at the bottom of the pyramid: these most basic human survival needs include food and water, sufficient rest, clothing and shelter, overall health, and reproduction. Maslow posited that only when these basic needs are met, can an individual move on to addressing higher-level needs.
Studies have shown, for example, that young children who do not eat nutritious meals before and during school tend to perform less well academically than children who do. Looking at Maslow's pyramid, it makes sense that a hungry child cannot focus on learning since their basic physiological need for food has not been met. As you may already know, these studies were pivotal in the decision to offer free breakfasts and lunches in public elementary schools across America.
Basic Needs Deficiency in Dancers
The following three areas are where I see dancers falling below their Basic Needs Baselines on a regular basis.
1. SLEEP
The National Sleep Foundation recommends the following number of hours per night:
Depending on your age, you should be getting between 7 and 11 hours of sleep per night. I have worked with few dancers who manage to get the recommended number of hours and the reasons range from too much homework to too much dancing.
Lack of sleep can directly impact a young athlete's health: in one study of college athletes, those who slept less than 8 hours per night were 1.7 times more likely to have an injury than those who slept more than 8 hours. Sleep is not a luxury, but a basic physiological need!
2. FOOD
Despite what we know about nutritional needs, the dance world is almost synonymous with bad eating habits and most dancers I have coached are chronically underfed or eat only sporadically, like trying to eat the majority of their calories at dinnertime (which does not work, by the way!)
The short story is that, in order to maintain a healthy metabolism* and to meet the energy demands of their activity, most young dancers and athletes require at least three meals a day and sometimes 5 or 6.
If you don't put food and drink into your body, very little energy can be produced, leaving you chronically tired, injury-prone, and unable to push your body to greater heights of achievement. And yet, that is exactly what you are aiming to do every day in the studio!
I am well aware of the pressures to conform to standards of extreme thinness, but at some point, you need to decide what YOUR baseline is: what are you willing to sacrifice for thinness?
Your strength?
Your agility?
Your bones?
What if, instead, you thought about what you want to GAIN by eating properly? Increased power, stamina and longevity come to my mind.
* "Metabolism is the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy. During this complex process, calories in food and beverages are combined with oxygen to release the energy your body needs to function." (Mayo Clinic)
3. REST
Rest is defined as awake time when your body is not being used for dancing or other high impact exercise. Like sleep and food, the bottom line is that, generally speaking, dancers do not get enough rest. Year-round professional training programs have dancers in the studio from 5-9 hours/day and often include weekends; when dancers have weekends off, they often use them to take private lessons or hit the gym.
Lack of rest can lead to frequent illness and burnout. But perhaps more alarming, lack of rest leads to overuse injuries, which are the most prevalent type of injury in ballet dancers, accounting for over 75% of all injuries. (Source here.)
Yes, that's correct: over 75% of all injuries are from OVERUSE! That's a very large number. And presumably, it's a number that can be reduced if dancers train less and rest more.
With that figure in mind, it defies logic that dancers take so little time off. But dancers I talk to are often afraid to stop: they fear how long it will take to get back in shape; they fear weight gain and loss of muscle. And oftentimes, teachers reinforce those fears.
In order to establish your Basic Needs Baseline for rest, it might be helpful to take stock of your average month with a few simple questions:
How many hours per day/week are you actively training? Actively resting?
At the end of the week, are you physically and mentally exhausted?
Do you ever feel like not going to ballet because of mental or physical fatigue?
WRAP UP
Taking an hour to consider and write down your Basic Needs Baseline in at least these three areas is a worthwhile exercise in part because it can save you from burnout, exhaustion, injury, and illness. Any of those issues will take you out of the studio for days if not weeks or months, with bone injuries taking between 2 weeks and 4 months to heal, depending on how badly injured you are.
And the bottom line is that even the best teachers and directors are not aware of what your body needs and whether you are meeting those needs or falling short. They usually find out when something happens, like an injury or repeat illness or sudden lack of interest in training. In my opinion, that's just too late.
I help dancers create their own Basic Needs Baselines all of the time and would love to help you! Our first phone session is free of charge and can be scheduled here.
Stay mindful of the basics this summer so you can be productive and healthy!
Be well,
