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Essay / Neurological Pain Tolerance and Dancers
To become a professional dancer, you must be able to push many limits. To do this, dancers tend to become very nervous perfectionists. They become highly motivated individuals who are not willing to give up, no matter the cost. The dancers' strong work ethic gives them the ability to fly their bodies across the stage and extend their legs toward the sky. Sometimes dancers overcompensate their bodies in order to learn these skills, resulting in minor injuries. In the world of dance, this can be extremely dangerous as it leads to other chronic pain conditions. Due to dancers' highly driven personalities, they tend to ignore pain in certain areas because they fear being disappointed by their teachers and themselves. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Dancing with an injury for a set period of time can build up and get worse, leading to the development of a much more serious injury. As a result, dancers develop certain coping mechanisms that allow them to dance with extreme levels of pain and exhaustion. From a young age, dancers learn that to succeed in this industry, they must overcome pain and exhaustion if they want to succeed. Even when dancers' bodies go through several changes, they are taught to continue practicing. Bowerman et. al. (2014) specifically examined how young ballet dancers going through puberty are at increased risk of injury due to their maturational changes. During puberty, a dancer typically transitions to pointe shoes, while experiencing an increase in the growth rate of their feet and lower limbs. Therefore, dancers tend to perform various compensations in the valgus angle of the knee, especially on their preferred leg for working. This leads to poor alignment and overuse of the lower extremities which can eventually lead to injury (Bowerman et. al., 2004). Overuse of particular muscles is usually associated with dancers' omnipresence and inability to stop training when they feel pain. Dancers tend to fear specific injuries because they feel the need to remain competitive with their peers, and not being able to train for several months can cause complete disappointment in a dancer's life (Encarnacion et. al ., 2000). Understanding when a dancer should detect pain severe enough to constitute a possible injury is of great concern. Dance becomes more intense with longer and more rigorous rehearsal hours, with increased years of training. It has been found that increasing the number of years of dance training correlates with the intensity placed on both the minds and bodies of professional dancers. The higher the skill level of dancers, the more likely they are to neglect existing injuries. A simple snap from a dancer's hip or pain from tight muscle aces can actually cause small injuries that can eventually lead to chronic disorders. This suggests that dancers who work overtime themselves learn to have pain assessment strategies that help them dance with an injury (Paparizos et. al., 2005). Studies have examined the neurological strategies and methods that very physical people use to tolerate extreme amounts of pain. More precisely, it isPossible that dancers learn to control pain-related emotions in their high-stress environment due to the competitive nature of the performer. Dancers adopt certain coping mechanisms that allow them to dance for many years with an undetected injury. Dancers tend to experience fewer catastrophic emotions. The process of catastrophizing occurs when people believe their symptoms are much more negative than they really are. It has been found that very physical people tend to ignore these catastrophic emotions in order to achieve certain levels of success. The study conducted by Paparizos et. al (2005) supports this decatastrophizing theory. They found that catastrophizing strategies predict pain perception behavior in non-dancers, and thus they exhibit higher pain-related negative emotions. For professional dancers however, Paparizos et. al. (2005) found that measures of magnification (perceived level of threat regarding the painful stimulus) were much more effective in determining dancers' pain perception. This can be interpreted as the dancers' ability to monitor their pain level and pass off existing painful stimuli occurring in their body. For the non-dancers participating in this study, they experienced higher levels of helplessness, which therefore explains their stronger catastrophic emotions (Paparizo et. al., 2005). Dancers who have been training for several years are usually seasoned professionals at monitoring their bodies; but sometimes they are unable to detect an accumulated injury. Most often, injuries occur when dancers overtrain and use improper technique. Therefore, it would be safe to assume that a more skilled dancer would be able to detect when they are properly injured. Encarnación, et. al. (2000) worked with a series of professional and non-professional dancers at the high school and college levels and then compared their pain perception to that of other athletes. Participants were asked to complete the Sports Inventory of Pain (SIP), which measures pain levels. cognitive evaluations, coping mechanisms, catastrophizing and body awareness. When comparing ballet dancers to other trained athletes, dancers participating in this study and other studies like it showed significantly different results. Dancers have lower cognitive outcomes and demonstrate strong coping mechanisms. Their coping mechanisms seem specific to their talent/sport. This refers to the interesting psychological abilities of dancers. Dancers are more willing to endure high levels of pain compared to the average person because this is what they must endure on a daily basis to be successful (Paparizos et. al., 2005). Among the within-group statistics, the question remains whether professional dancers have higher pain tolerance than recreational dancers. Interestingly, results from several studies showed that there was no significant main effect on pain coping mechanisms in pre-professional and professional ballet dancers. However, in terms of catastrophic emotions, Paparizos et. al (2005) and Encarnacion et. al. (2000) both found that more skilled dancers exhibited lower levels of catastrophic emotions. This subtle difference in results may be due to the greater threat value of an injury occurring at the professional level rather than at the recreational level. Besides the difference in emotions.