Take a break from technology

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That dancers work physically is a well-known fact. But that they also work a lot mentally is a lesser-known fact. As dancers and choreographers they need to keep thinking all the time about new choreographies and moves to make the next dance show more successful and attractive than the earlier one.

Apart from all the thinking, a dancer has a dance company of his/her own and is also busy taking classes at the dance company. And as any other institution would have it, a dancer also has to deal with administrative duties that come along. In this competitive world, a dancer has to be in constant touch with clients, accountants, fellow dancers and other dance companies. All this gets mentally taxing for most dancers. A decade or two ago technology wasn’t so developed where you could complete such secretarial and administrative tasks in a jiffy. A dancer would complete his/her work though postal letters, couriers. The only way to reach people was through their landlines or pagers. But in today’s world what with emails and blackberry services including Skype and other video conferencing services, work has become much easier. A dancer today wants to do work on the go and finish up as much as he/she can so that more work can be achieved in lesser time.
The competition and modern tools have added to the stress for a dancer and his creativity. As a dancer have you thought about taking a break from the sense of urgency and concentrate simply on dance? I recently came across a research carried out by a university in UK, which said that a mentally and physically relaxed dancer is more creative and productive.
Being cut off from official e-mails and messages not only lowers stress levels but also allows dancers and other people to concentrate far better, says the new study. During the study, researchers attached heart rate monitors to computer users in a suburban office setting of a dance company. Software sensors detected how often they switched windows.
People who read e-mails changed screens twice as often and were in a steady ‘high alert’ state, with more constant heart rates. Those who did not read e-mails for five days experienced more natural, variable heart rates. It is found that when emails are removed from dancer lives, they multitask less and experience less stress. Those with no e-mails reported feeling better able to do their jobs and stay on task, with fewer stressful and time-wasting interruptions, according to the statement of the study.
Measurements bore that out, dancers with emails switched windows on an average of 37 times per hour. Those without changed screens half as often — about 18 times in an hour. This finding could be useful for boosting productivity and survey suggested that controlling e-mail login times, batching messages or other strategies might be helpful. Email vacations on the job may be a good idea. Getting up and walking to someone’s desk or just moving on the dance floor offered physical relief too, the survey mentions. Stress on the job, in turn, has been linked to a variety of health problems.
So next time when you want to think of a new concept for a show, then take a vacation from all emails, all computer related stuff and technology and see the change and freshness it brings to your live and project.