Energy Management: Sleep, Nutrition, and Movement
You cannot “reframe a negative thought” when you’re running on four hours of sleep and a bag of pretzels.
Physical energy is your foundation, and when it collapses, everything else goes with it.
In this post, we’ll explore concrete strategies for three critical domains of Energy Management: Sleep, Nutrition, and Movement.
Sleep = Your Most Underrated Training Tool
Neuroscientist Matthew Walker calls sleep “the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day” (Walker, 2017). Even modest sleep deprivation (for example, sleeping only six hours a night over several days) produces cognitive deficits equal to what you would experience if you didn’t sleep for 24 hours. Sleep-deprived people don’t usually realize how impaired they are, which presents obvious safety issues. For Dancers, driving to class is riskier, but the risks don’t end when you step inside the dance studio. Physically, our proprioception (your body's ability to sense its own position, movement, and force in space) and reaction times are both reduced when you have missed sleep. Mentally, our creative flexibility and problem-solving ability are reduced. Emotionally, we are less able to regulate our strong emotions.
So far, we are just talking about regular classes and weekly routines; we haven’t even gotten to festivals and workshop intensives. Sleep (and the resulting low energy) was such a big problem for me when I co-produced a yearly international dance festival that I started meditating daily throughout the year to prepare for the sleep deprivation I experienced during the festival week. Meditating was a quicker way to replenish my energy than napping.
Basic Sleep Hygiene for Dancers
Turn off screens at least 30 minutes before bed because blue light suppresses melatonin
Keep your bedroom near 65°F / 18°C so your core body temp can drop before you fall asleep
Reserve your bed only for sleep and sex to help your brain develop a clear association
Keep a consistent wake time even on weekends
Expose yourself to sunlight right after you get up and moving
Create a wind-down ritual: the same sequence, every night, signals your nervous system to downshift
Event-Specific Sleep Strategies
Late-night socials, adrenaline, alcohol, overstimulation, and a hotel room that isn’t yours all but guarantee you aren’t going to sleep well. Plan for it:
Set an alcohol cutoff at least 3 hours before bed (alcohol disrupts REM sleep)
Hydrate aggressively before and during the event, not just after
Eat a light, simple snack after the late-night social (not a full meal)
Resist the urge to scroll through event photos in bed (this one is the most difficult for me to do)
Nutrition: Fuel the Performance, Not the Crash
Your body runs on stable blood glucose. High-glycemic foods like sugar, refined carbs, and juice spike your blood sugar fast… then you crash. Low-glycemic foods that have protein, healthy fats, and fiber digest slowly and deliver steady, sustained energy.
The dancer’s version of this problem: you’re getting ready for a performance after a day of workshops, and someone hands you chocolate. Yum! You feel better briefly, then you crash harder right before you need to perform. I know I have done that many times.
At Dance Events: Build Your Food Plan
Protein-rich breakfast within an hour of waking
Pack your own snacks so you don’t depend on the event’s food options
Strategic afternoon snack (nuts, apple with peanut butter, hard-boiled egg) to prevent the afternoon crash
Choose a light, balanced dinner after the show and save the bigger celebration meal for later
Movement: Create Energy, Don’t Drain It
Here’s the paradox: movement creates energy but overtraining drains it. Research on sedentary behavior shows that prolonged sitting impairs metabolism and cognitive performance, even in otherwise active individuals (Biswas et al., 2015). But going full-out in every workshop at a four-day festival falls into overtraining.
Your body will tell you when you've crossed the line from training into overtraining. Look out for physical signals like soreness that doesn’t resolve normally, movements that suddenly feel harder than they should, minor injuries that keep recurring, or feeling exhausted when you are getting plenty of sleep. The psychological signals are equally important and might arrive first: dreading rehearsal instead of looking forward to it, irritability that seems specifically tied to dance, or a loss of motivation that doesn't feel like an ordinary fluctuation.
The complicating factor for dancers is that dance culture often works against us. “Pushing through” is usually celebrated. I decided not to give examples of times I have put my health second to dance because I have had too many conversations where we end up good-naturedly “one-upping” each other with the outrageous things we have done in the name of art.
Dancer 1: “I came to rehearsal from having a tooth pulled.”
Dancer 2: “Well, that’s nothing, I broke my leg and perfected my spinning with a cast on.”
Ok, I am being silly, but that is pretty close to how those conversations go. If your dance experience is like this, admitting exhaustion can feel like a character flaw. Research on stress and adaptation is clear: stress without sufficient recovery weakens the system rather than strengthening it. Part of your longevity as a dancer is dependent on reading your body's signals early and treating recovery as a vital part of training.
In Daily Life
Stand up and stretch every 30–45 minutes if you sit for long periods
Take at least one big movement break every 90–120 minutes
Get aerobic exercise 3 times weekly; resistance training 2 times weekly; flexibility work 2–3 times weekly
At Dance Events
“Mark” movements when you’re conserving energy. I studied ballet as a child and teen, and the teachers always told us when we were “marking” a rehearsal or dancing “full out”. I have rarely been in a class or workshop that has encouraged marking (other than mine), and I am not really sure why.
Use mental rehearsal during high-fatigue moments. I will talk much more about mental rehearsal later in the blog series, when our focus turns to dancing through illness and injury.
Stop significant movement at least 3 hours before sleep
Use full-body stretching as a quick energy reset mid-day
With these strategies, you can preserve energy, stay injury-free, and perform at your best when it counts.
References
Biswas, A., et al. (2015). Sedentary time and its association with risk for disease incidence, mortality, and hospitalization in adults. Annals of Internal Medicine, 162(2), 123–132.
Czeisler, C. A. (2013). Perspective: Casting light on sleep deficiency. Nature, 497, S13.
Driskell, J. E., Copper, C., & Moran, A. (1994). Does mental practice enhance performance? Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(4), 481–492.
Jenkins, D. J., et al. (1981). Glycemic index of foods: A physiological basis for carbohydrate exchange. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 34(3), 362–366.
Okamoto-Mizuno, K., & Mizuno, K. (2012). Effects of thermal environment on sleep and circadian rhythm. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 31(1), 14.
Walker, M. (2017). Why We Sleep. Scribner.