Everyday I walk down to our unfinished basement to do something I call treadmill dancing. You might have seen it before in Taylor Swift's Apple Music commercial. When I watched the spot a few years ago, I thought: Who the hell tries to move their body in sync to the beat while running on a conveyor belt? I chalked it up as an over-the-top pitch to endear us to Swift and sell an Apple product. But it turns out, I'm also a treadmill dancer.
Unlike at the gym, in my basement there is no one to gawk at my ridiculous moves. It's just me listening to the Pointer Sisters' 1984 hit Jump (For Your Love). Everything about this song is an invitation to dance — from the insistent electronic drumming to the bursts of synthesizer to the syncopated singing.
I can't help it. My shoulders start to shimmy. Fingers wave and point. My hands punch the air to mark crescendos. My feet leave the belt, landing tiny jumps. I sing along, lost in reverie. I'm a child again, listening to Jump during dance parties with my mom. Suddenly, I've shed the emotional weight of trying to survive a pandemic. In these moments of pure delight, there is no room for anxiety over how I'll manage distance learning for my 5-year-old or what our household will do without the $600 unemployment bonus. I just feel alive again.
Back in March, treadmill dancing to pop music wasn't on my list of self-care options. Yet it's brought me relief from stress and anxiety in ways that more obvious acts of self-care, like hiking and reading for pleasure, have not. I found this particular combination by accident, but it's taught me the value of cultivating small moments of unadulterated joy to survive this awful time.
When I described my daily treadmill dancing sessions to Vaile Wright, a psychologist and spokesperson for the American Psychological Association, she could explain exactly why I find them so therapeutic.
Carving out even 15 minutes (which is the average length given that I work and have two young children) gives me a sense of control. The exercise lets loose feel-good endorphins, boosting my mood. While we throw fun impromptu dance parties as a family, I never know when the 5-year-old will break it up to play babies or the 10-month-old will let out a high-pitched scream for attention. After their bedtime, I'm alone in the basement, which is its own small gift. There are no decisions to make. Gone are the endless string of choices I have to weigh throughout the day.
Wright says this phase of the pandemic represents a shift from the beginning, when we were trying to find a new normal. That came with unfamiliar habits and routines, perhaps forays into rewarding activities like growing vegetables or Zoom happy hours. Now many of us are trying to sustain those newfound hobbies, eager to make life worth living in our increasingly grim reality.
I suppose it's no surprise that as I unconsciously searched for that meaning in my own life, I turned to music from childhood, and pop songs in general. I can still remember the giant knobs on my parents' '70s era stereo. I would turn them back and forth until static gave way to a hit like Kool & The Gang's Celebration. My four siblings and I gleefully danced in the living room of our small apartment. Even when life felt complicated and the cupboards grew increasingly bare at the end of the month, pop music provided an escape.
Music, of course, has a powerful effect on the human brain, helping us channel emotions that mirror the song's own sentiment. As a child of the ‘80s, I loved high-tempo, percussive songs with synthesizers and drum machines that we now deem cheesy.
When we first got the treadmill in April, before my husband was laid off, I quickly realized I couldn't listen to anything linked to the recent past or who I'd been just a few months ago. So that meant nothing from my "Pump You Up" playlist, which I use to train for soccer, doing ball drills and sprints in time with songs like Eminem's Lose Yourself, Flo Rida's Good Feeling, The Rolling Stones' Can't You Hear Me Knocking, and the Beastie Boys' Sabotage. I needed 30 minutes of emotional amnesia.
First I cued up tracks that I'd downloaded for my 5-year-old, whose own taste had been increasingly shaped by Kidz Bop on YouTube. She watched the videos rapt, trying to make out the lyrics of radio hits sang by tweens, performing dances with big smiles plastered on their moon faces. Soon I was turning to Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X, and Taylor Swift herself.
There I was on the treadmill, moving at four miles per hour — because let's be honest, my body is still very much postpartum — half-dancing and half-running to Shake It Off, enjoying the simple happiness my daughter feels when music just makes her feel good. Then I craved the high of pop music from my own childhood. (Nostalgia, it turns out, can help us cope with stress and trauma.) That's when I found Apple Music's Solid Gold Hits, a playlist of "genuine pop classics" that included personal favorites like Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), George Michael's Faith, and, yes, the Pointer Sisters' Jump.
Wright says the bliss of treadmill dancing to the soundtrack of my youth proves that self-care needn't be something you overthink. With the right activity, 10 minutes is restorative. A positive baseline of emotional well-being is helpful, because you're more likely to feel energized and open to serendipitous acts of joy.
As the mother of an infant, I'd made the decision to lower my expectations for success prior to the pandemic. If I could consistently sleep well, eat healthy, and meditate for five minutes, that counted as a good day. With those consistent habits in place, I felt more motivated and finding the willpower to get on the treadmill was relatively easy.
An adaptable mindset helps, too, says Wright. Instead of viewing the pandemic as the "worst thing that's ever happened" — which it arguably is for many people — it can be helpful to see an opportunity for understanding what's most important in our lives.
It's also not lost on me that many of the songs I keep on repeat are manifestations of Black joy and musical genius. I didn't understand as a child how modern music has deep roots in a Black tradition of song as a form of truth-telling, resistance, and freedom. I know that legacy now. I feel its spark, even in a simple pop song, light me up from the inside. To sing and move, for me, is to feel the glory of being alive.
But the truth is you (obviously) don't need a treadmill to get through the pandemic. You don't even need to dance. Just find joy however and whenever you can, and let it take you as far as you're willing to go.
Topics Health Music Social Good COVID-19
