Looking After the Dancer Inside

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“Happiness for me is largely a matter of digestion.”
― Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living

Last summer, in Dance and the Body, Part One, we looked at component parts of a diet. Of course, there are hundreds of theories about how people should eat. What you may think of as a “superfood” could be just superfluous roughage for someone else. Nutrition science evolves fast, and today (2019) experts tell us that we’re all different, so the right nourishment for anyone is hard to define. It can be established by laboratory tests, but these are expensive, and dancers are not well-paid. If you can afford a tailormade analysis of fecal samples for your own personal biome, with made-to-measure dietary advice, you’re very lucky – go for it. If not, here are a few general principles.

“If there’s one thing to know about the human body; it’s this: the human body has a ringmaster. This ringmaster controls your digestion, your immunity, your brain, your weight, your health and even your happiness. This ringmaster is the gut.”
― Nancy Mure

Your gut is complex, versatile and important. You may think of it as mere waste-disposal, not something to dwell on, slightly embarrassing. Actually, there’s a lot more to it than that. Its functionality is amazing.There’s even a special control panel down there, your enteric nervous system; scientists call this your “second brain”, and it can do lots of stuff, including keeping the show on the road even if parts of your central nervous system get damaged. Not only are your intestines a complex, efficient digestive apparatus, they also connect directly with your nervous system — your brain in particular.

A whole conversation of biochemical messaging goes on constantly, back and forth between your enteric and central nervous systems. It affects your endocrine glands, your autonomic nervous system, neurotransmission, brain and other parts of your equipment. This is the Gut-Brain-Axis (GBA), and you’ve already seen it in action. Most people know the dramatically upset stomach that strikes when you’re scared, worried or deeply unhappy. That’s the GBA at work – signals from your emotions triggering an instant effect on your innards. Again, when you’re hungry and you see or smell something delicious (“mouth-watering”, as they say), your GBA is firing up the release of saliva, the first phase of digestion, which will continue with chewing, swallowing and the passage of food along through your system and into the intestines.

Intestines contain truly staggering numbers of bacteria, all working away to synthesise vitamins, hormones and other essential features of your digestive and metabolic processes. Collectively all these wee creatures make up your microbiome, and their influence on your life is very significant. They affect your emotional and thought processes, your immune system, allergies, metabolic problems, even your mental health. They can be damaged or destroyed in various ways – disinfectants, antimicrobial products, antibiotics, environmental pollution, irritable bowel syndrome, severe diarrhoea, illness, infection, ulcerative colitis, damage to the gut lining and many other factors. If this happens, you may develop chronic low-level inflammation, which is the precursor to several unpleasant and potentially lethal conditions, including diabetes and many types of cancer. The hormone balances regulating your mood, physical health and behaviour could be seriously affected; this can alter your personality and, ultimately, threaten life.

“In understanding the basics of digestion, you’ll discover who’s in charge. Here’s a hint. It’s not you.”
― Nancy Mure

It’s important, therefore, to keep these busy little helpers happy and healthy – if they get sick, so do you. Your lifestyle matters a lot to your microbiome – you really need to get enough sleep, you’ve got to hydrate, and you have to find ways of reducing tension (we’ve written about this in several posts – Dancers and Sleep, Dancers and Water, Dancers and Green Spaces, Dancers in Distress – have a look through the blog for some helpful suggestions). Go easy on alcohol, stay right off recreational drugs (please!!!…), don’t tip lots of potentially bowel-irritating stuff down your gullet, cut down your intake of no-no’s like excess sugar, transfats and so on. Try to think ahead, and steer clear of situations where you might be at risk of food poisoning or bacterial infection. (Clostridium is alarmingly easy to acquire, and notoriously difficile to get rid of). If you’re on holiday somewhere exotic, think before you dive headlong into the local street food. What’s it made of, how and where is it cooked, how long has it been on offer, what’s it served in, how many fingers touch it before it gets to you? Horrid little things like helicobacter can creep into your life unnoticed in these situations, and believe me, this is not what you want in your tummy.

“Those who give themselves indigestion or get drunk, do not know how to eat or drink.”
Jean-Antheleme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826)

Try to remember about ordering your drinks without ice. Ice is made of water, and you don’t know where it’s been. In lots of places it’s dangerous to drink the tap water and you really would not believe some of the lab reports on analysis of ice cubes. If the place where you’re staying has a buffet in the restaurant, try to order à la carte — the stuff on the table may have been out there a while, and things may have happened to it since it was first put out. Never eat insufficiently cooked chicken. Actually, even chicken you prepare yourself needs care. Don’t wash it, as you would with a steak or a chop – if there’s salmonella on it, you can spread it around in the droplets of stray water. It will be killed by the heat of cooking, but you don’t want it all over your kitchen, so thoroughly scrub the knives and cutting-boards you’ve used, to get rid of the traces. Salmonella is nobody’s friend… Make sure you wash your fruit and vegetables, wash your hands frequently and thoroughly, all that jazz. (I know, I’m sounding like somebody’s mother again, but these things matter. Your health matters to you. If your body is out of order, you can’t dance – think about that…).

“Take all that is given whether wealth, love or language, nothing comes by mistake and with good digestion all can be turned to health.” — George Herbert

One thing the microbiome really likes is probiotics – things like Kefir or yoghurt. Be careful, though, many of the commercial ones are spiked with artificial flavourings and sweeteners, so find a simple one without all the superfluous bits, and have a cup of it every day. The microbes will be delighted, your mood will improve, you’ll feel less anxiety and stress, and you won’t get so many colds. And actually, as more and more superbugs emerge, in a world where antibiotics are fast losing their effectiveness against ever stronger mutant diseases, you may even find that regular use of probiotics and careful hygiene could one day save your dancing life…