Throughout her career, Tia Ungar, a dancer, cheerleader and cheer coach based in the United Kingdom, has dealt with chronic anxiety. When her anxiety peaks, it’s a challenge to learn and memorize a choreography.
“When I was at my worst with my anxiety, even just being in dance class was a pretty anxious thing for me,” says Ungar. “Trying to calm down and be present, I didn’t always have much room to remember what I was physically supposed to be doing.”
Learning and retaining choreography and corrections can be a challenge for any dancer. But some mental health conditions — such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, OCD, and PTSD, to name a few — can make it even more difficult to process and retrieve memories. Understanding how these conditions affect the brain and finding ways to deal with these changes and improve overall memory can help dancers cope.
How mental health affects memory
The effects of mental health on memory may differ depending on the nature of the mental health condition, according to Paula Thomson, a clinical psychologist who works with dancers and is a professor at California State University, Northridge.
Depression affects the prefrontal cortex of the brain, “which is very involved in memory processing and retrieval,” Thomson says. This can make the mind feel less sharp, as well as disrupt hunger and sleep cycles. Without proper nutrition and rest, the dancer will be even less prepared to function at maximum memory capacity.
Anxiety-related states often lead to a divided focus, meaning that a person is preoccupied with both the task and their experience of anxiety. “When people have an anxiety disorder, they feel the worry so acutely that they can’t trust themselves to learn because they’re so preoccupied with the catastrophic ‘what if,'” Thomson explains.
Some dancers may also differentiate as a coping mechanism for very high anxiety. Dissociation refers to a state of disconnection in which the individual feels somehow disconnected from the present moment or sense of self. “The memory area of the brain, the hippocampus, is a kind of shutter that goes on and off because the dosage of anxiety is so high,” Thomson says, which can cause memory lapses.
Instruments for dancers
When mental health problems lead to memory problems, “the first step is to recognize and take care of ourselves,” Thomson says. If the problem is relatively mild, there are some tactics you can practice on your own. To calm anxiety, Ungar recommends taking a series of steady breaths, which can help regulate the nervous system, leading to a reduction in the physical symptoms of anxiety. Thomson also suggests starting each day with an internal scan to assess your physical and mental health, so you can then apply self-regulation skills to feel more present. Explore things like your anxiety levels, emotions, and appetite.
“If it becomes a persistent problem, seek professional help,” says Thomson. Consider contacting a mental health professional with experience working with dancers, artists, or athletes who can provide advice and coping strategies tailored to you.
To help improve memory, Kathleen McGuire Gaines—a former dancer and founder of Minding the Gap, an organization focused on mental health advocacy in the dance industry—recommends using visualization techniques. Mentally going through difficult choreography sequences and visualizing yourself mastering them, for example, can help cement those sequences into your memory. “There’s been a lot of research done on how effective visualization is and how it connects your mind and body,” she explains.
Ungar agrees, adding that listening to music has helped her visualization practice. “Just getting used to the music really helped me, when I was in situations where my anxiety was high and I was more stressed, to rely a little more on memory,” she says.
McGuire Gaines encourages dancers to ask questions if the choreography doesn’t sink in. Also, if you feel comfortable, be honest about your mental health with your teacher or artistic director. They may be able to help provide resources and other support.