Dancing – a Dangerous Addiction?

The other day I was asked about something that made me think about my relationship with dancing. My answer to a question, that whether I knew my passion for dancing was something above normal, was obvious: of course I was aware of that. For many dancers dancing is just a nice way of spending time every now and then and they wouldn’t put that much time and effort into it than what I do. I think of dancing as something more than a hobby; it is more like a lifestyle, as I have also written here before. Surely, for an average dancer putting as much time to dancing as I do in weekly basis is above normal.

But had I ever thought that my passion for dancing would be so extreme that it would actually go above the limit of being healthy – no, never even crossed my mind. When put in this way it even sounds like a horrible accusation towards something as dear to me as dancing is. How could dancing be unhealthy?! No, of course it is not unhealthy, I responded furiously, surprisingly feeling somehow offended about the question. It is exactly the opposite, I continued and ended the discussion.

Regardless my stiff response the question made me think later on. After all, as I have said many times, I am a dance addict, truly addicted to dancing. Is it really a good thing to be addicted to anything, let it be dancing? Could there be a chance that my relationship with dancing was unhealthy at some level, or could develop into that?

 

I’m the kind of person who likes to put in 100 percent of myself. When I’m in, I’m in. When I think about my previous hobbies I have always had some sort of a main hobby that has taken over most of my free time. I haven’t had many different hobbies and those that I have chosen have been with me many years. This shows that I like to put my concentration into something and to develop myself in that area, and also that I’m willing to work on those areas consistently and patiently. It is also that when I find something that I really like doing, something that could be my thing, I want to put all my effort into it.

This is what happened with me and dancing: I quickly came to realize that it definitely could be my thing and soon I noticed I had given up the other my things that used to take up my free time… And that is the way it has been since! The other hobbies I have now (do I have any of those…?) became part of my life because I saw them as something that could support my dancing. There is no doubt dancing is a central part of my life and that my life would seem quite empty without it, taken into account that also my social circles are nowadays considerably made up of, who else but, dancers.

But maybe it is not only about how much time I put into dancing, it must also be about how I think about dancing. Do I put dancing above everything else in my life? Do I feel a compulsion to dance? If a behavioral addiction is defined to cause negative consequences to physical, mental, social and/or financial well-being, does dancing cause that to me?

These are definitely not easy questions with any straightforward answers just because dancing is so huge thing for me. I must say that I put dancing above many things in my life – maybe sometimes even into too high priority. For example, it has to be quite exceptional circumstances for me to skip my dance class, and if there is a nice dance party going on in the city I’m glad to skip any other evening gathering for that. Also, I do start to miss dancing if I don’t do it for a while, let’s say, a couple of weeks – does this tell that I have a compulsion or that I just regularly want to do something that I like doing?

 

What about those negative consequences? What comes to physical, I must say that dancing has actually increased my heath and has proved to be a good and healthy way of exercise for me. Before I was exercising too intensively and causing too much stress to my body and thus I got ill multiple times per year. Since I started dancing I have been considerable less sick and been feeling a lot better in general. What comes to social consequences, dancing has yet again affected to my social life in a positive way: it is such a nice and easy way to get to know to new people constantly. Partner dancing is a social dance and the social aspect of it makes it so enjoyable. What about my financial well-being? Yes, dancing takes up money but not that radically it would become a problem; when I have been low in cash I have just found more affordable classes and concentrated on social dancing. The most difficult aspect to consider would then be the mental side. Even thinking what would be a negative mental consequence is a hard task. That I develop a need to dance? That I will get into a bad mood if I don’t get to dance? Also, everything affects to everything so it would be hard to predict some possible outcomes. But that dancing would really mess up my mind – I doubt there is a big chance to that. To sum up the above: not big needs to be worried.

Still, I’m not denying that there is something very addictive in dancing. Smokers usually say that they could stop smoking if they wanted to but they just don’t want to. To be honest, I don’t know if I could stop dancing even if I wanted to. It is so integrated into my life and my way of thinking. And I simply don’t want to. It is the my thing. However, I think that some (positive) addictions can be accepted. So I’ll let dancing be the one for me.