Taking the next step in your education is a significant achievement, especially when embarking on a degree-level course.

After finishing your exams, preparing audition pieces, auditioning for several universities, and practising your skills over the summer, you probably feel like it’s time to slow down and enjoy uni life. But it’s only going to get busier — and that’s a good thing!

But to ensure you’re feeling your best throughout the transition, you must look after your mental and physical health. Uh-huh, making it through freshers week without getting ill is possible.

Whether you’re studying as a theatre, music, dance, film or circus performer or technician, or in any other performing arts profession, we have tips to help you settle in without stress. Scroll down to get the lowdown now.

 

Top 5 Tips For New Performing Arts Students

If you want to hit the high notes confidently, you’ll need to feel your best. Here are some critical tips new students need to know when starting university.

 

1. Use a Meal Plan

Yes, we sound like your mother. But healthy eating is the key to ensuring your mental and physical health is in check. If you’re not feeling 100%, you won’t be able to nail your first dance classes or show off your monologue skills.

Create a meal plan of healthy dishes that you can cook without fuss. This way, you won’t waste time (and more money) going to the shop daily, and you can ensure you’re getting good nutrition. Check out for some inspiration.

Or sign up for our upcoming online nutrition workshop with Lucy Swain, an NHS professional, who will be lecturing about the importance of diet, nutrition and performance, how to eat well on tour, and the importance of staying hydrated. This free event is on the 7th of November, and you can .

 

2. Drink Responsibly

University is the time to let loose, but your partying habits shouldn’t impact your daily life. Leaving the party early might leave you with FOMO, but we promise you’ll feel better when you leave at 1 am rather than 5 am.

 

3. Get Prepared For Class

Nervous about your first few classes? Try to get ahead. If you have the syllabus, you can familiarise yourself with the upcoming content. From the history of the performing arts to the plays you’ll be studying, knowing as much information as possible is helpful to calm your nerves.

Pro Tip: Look at previous students’ work. This will show you what lies ahead for your career.

 

4. Don’t Neglect Exercise

Whether you’re a dancer, pianist, or lighting technician, exercise is vital for your overall health. You don’t need to be running marathons, but doing a week is necessary to stay well.

If you don’t know how to get started, consider making a healthy practice diary to keep your goals on track. Find our healthy practice diary resource here to get started.

 

5. Sleep!

When you’re suddenly living with housemates, falling into a healthy sleep schedule can be challenging. But avoid going to bed at sunrise whenever possible. . Don’t go without.

Want to learn how to prioritise sleep when working in music? On the 28th of September, we’re running a free event with a sleep psychologist to help you learn about sleep hygiene, what impacts sleep, and the consequences of poor sleep habits. .

 

Clinics for Performing Arts Students

… And everyone working in the performing arts

Taking care of your healthy practice basics can help to prevent many avoidable problems. But if you do need support, BAPAM’s free, expert clinical service provides accurate diagnosis and advice to overcome practice-related problems, helping you to get back to focusing on your creative work quickly and safely.

We understand life in the performing arts and provide free consultations online and face-to-face in Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Gateshead, Liverpool, London and Manchester.

Find more information on the BAPAM clinics now.

 

For Teachers & Course Leaders

Students are a large focus of BAPAM’s work, but they’re not the only performing arts professionals we assist. Educators can also use BAPAM’s clinical services, share our health resources, brush up on healthy practice skills for themselves and their students at BAPAM workshops, and commission bespoke education sessions for their institution.

And if you’d like to order physical performing arts health resources to share with your colleagues and students, get in touch during September and October, and we’ll send out the following for free (within the UK):

• A printed BAPAM welcome pack
• Warm-up exercises leaflets
• Performance anxiety posters
• Workshop posters

Find out more about the content and order here.

 

Start September With Success

Whatever discipline you’re studying, these tips will help you start the term on a winning note.

And the support doesn’t stop there. BAPAM is a charity dedicated to linking performing arts professionals with expert health and wellbeing services. If you need extra support, we’re on hand to assist. All degree-level performing art students can access BAPAM’s services, and you can find out more about us here.

Or check out our BAPAM Welcome Pack — an expert resource designed to help you perform at your best while caring for your mental and physical health.

Good luck to all 2023 students! You’ll smash it.

PAM Rounds is a new series of face to face events bringing together health professionals and students to discuss performing arts medicine clinical cases. Organised by the department led by Dr Hara Trouli, PAM Rounds will be held approximately quarterly at the ISEH (Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health), on Tottenham Court Road, London. The first session takes place on Wednesday 22 February, 2023, 6 – 8pm and focuses on musculoskeletal problems in the performing arts. PAM Rounds events are free of charge to attend.

To register, please email hara.trouli@ucl.ac.uk     

Our guest blog is from yoga teacher and flautist Veronika Klirova who joins our Community Drop In on 1 February teaching Musicians’ Yoga to Manage Anxiety.Ìý

Nearly eight years ago, I started a new job at one of the symphony orchestras in the UK. I was fresh out of college and, quite frankly, couldn’t believe my luck having been familiar with the odds of this happening (considering the number of flute students versus the number of flute jobs). But for all the excitement, there was an equal amount of anxiety. Was I going to do ok? Would I manage all the new repertoire? And, one that I don’t like to admit, did they make a mistake? Am I going to be found out as a fraud?

Prior to this as a music college student, I established a steady yoga practice routine for myself. Yoga was my sanctuary from all the stresses and pressures of that stage of my career. It was a place where I could just let go. I felt amazing afterward but I didn’t quite see behind the scenes. I didn’t know what the specific tools were that were helping me so much at the time nor why.

This may explain the fact that, once starting my new job, I decided to put going to yoga classes on hold in order to manage all the workload that was coming my way. Not the wisest of decisions as you can imagine. I can still remember those first few months. How stressed out I was, my difficulty falling asleep, then waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep. Add to that all of the pressure I was putting myself under wanting everything to be perfect and you’ve got a recipe for a disaster.

Fast forward to today, having trained as a yoga teacher in 2018 and worked with performers since then, it has made me understand what practices would make the biggest impact for them and myself.Ìý And if there is one thing I would like you to take away from this, it would be that yoga is not just stretching or Instagram worthy postures. For me, the biggest impact comes from these practices being able to regulate your response to stress.

If I could go back in time and sit down with my anxious 25-year old self, I would teach them how to self-regulate, relax and find calm and resilience in the face of all of the pressures they were facing. And most of all, I would tell them to be kinder to themselves and take care of their mental health because selfcare isn’t candy. It’s a necessity if we want to thrive as performers.

On Tuesday 1st February 2022, I have the pleasure of being a guest at the BAPAM Community Drop-in session teaching Musicians’ Yoga to Manage Anxiety.

Health in the performing arts industry – whose responsibility?

Every year BAPAM helps with hundreds of inquiries about health problems related to working in the performing arts. These include musculoskeletal problems caused by strain and intensive use of parts of the body, vocal health issues which need Ä¢¹½tv diagnosis and treatment, psychosocial problems including performance anxiety, stress related to the uncertain nature of the work (82% of the workforce are freelance) and more complex and enduring mental health conditions as well as hearing health problems. Performers, in common with other freelancers, tend to ignore health problems and seek help at a very late stage.Ìý The research shows that, at any one time, 75% of performers will have a health problem.

We were delighted when the Royal Society of Medicine chose to partner with BAPAM on a professional development event held on March 27, 2019 to consider occupational health in the performing arts sector and its relationship to the wider ‘gig economy’. We were lucky to have a stellar line up of speakers from the arts, academic and clinical worlds to provide a range of perspectives on this question.

Kicking off the conference, Jane Dyball, former CEO of the  outlined the complexity of the industry and the relationship of an artist to industry bodies at different times of their career. In the early stages, the artist may be very dependent on promoters, venues, managers, but that relationship changes when they are successful so that those bodies are dependent on the artist for their own success.

Dr. Colin Thomas, Chief Ä¢¹½tv Officer of the BBC, added to the picture as he described the plethora of jobs undertaken by freelancers in broadcasting and the difficult balance between their tax status as self-employed workers and the duty of care issues that organisations owe to both employees and freelancers.

, BBC Radio 4 broadcaster and BAPAM Patron, described the moment when he suffered paralysis of one of his vocal cords and his journey back to full health and employment. He spoke with courage of the isolation and anxiety of losing your identity and the difficulties of accessing the right care in this very Ä¢¹½tv area.

 of the Royal College of Music’s Centre for Performance Science, described results from recent research which demonstrated the lack of general fitness, particularly amongst student musicians.

In the afternoon we heard examples of good practice from Peter Garden of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and , Head of Dance Science at Trinity Laban. Peter outlined Liverpool Philharmonic’s approach to developing and supporting performance excellence through providing health and wellbeing services to orchestra musicians. He and the Board have seen the impact of this investment on enhanced performance, improved employee satisfaction and engagement, and positive signs of reduced reliance on freelancers to cover sickness absence due to playing-related musculoskeletal injuries. Professor Redding outlined the advances in healthy practice in dance education and how a Ä¢¹½tv health insurance scheme is helping to provide access to occupational health services.

Dr Rob Hampton, RCGP representative at Public Health England and a practising GP, described his own caseload and the difficulties for freelancers in accessing support with work-related health problems, the impact on the NHS and the evidence that working itself improves health. Dr John Etherington, NHS lead for rehabilitation, drew on research on performance enhancement in the military and in sport to demonstrate that effective training for the physical and vocation-related psychological demands as well as good rehabilitation after an injury can significantly improve health.

In this conference, the problems were clearly laid out and examples of solutions are available, but whose responsibility is it to drive the improvements? With over £5bn in UK annual revenue coming from the performing arts, it doesn’t seem sensible NOT to look after the health of the workforce, and leaving this role to charities on their own is not a sustainable solution.

Here are some thoughts from the BAPAM team on how the current position might be improved. First of all, to answer the question, who is responsible for improving performing arts health?

1. Employers and Education Providers. These bodies do have a duty of care to employees and students. Liverpool Philharmonic has demonstrated the economic and artistic case for employers investing in healthcare. Many employers can and do support occupational health for performers. A consistent approach here would improve the health of 18% of the workforce. There are 50,000 students in performing arts education and Professor Williamon’s research, the practice in Dance Education and the work of the Healthy Conservatoires Network demonstrate what can and should be done to develop healthy behaviours in students and ready them for the realities of working life.
2. The Freelance Performer. The performer is responsible for their own health (however, see point 3 below), including seeking help at an early stage and following the health behaviours which are evidenced to reduce the likelihood of health problems. Freelance performers who have learned these behaviours in education should be equipped for the working environment, but many performers have not had access to performance education. The provision of educational sessions and written and online materials together with peer support networks is crucial for this group. The Musicians’ Union, ISM, Equity, Help Musicians, Music Support as well as BAPAM and many other individual coaches and writers are currently offering support in this area.
3. The Performance Environment. Research evidence tells us that good self-care is best achieved within organisational structures that support individual wellbeing. While other organisations in the industry may not have a direct responsibility for performers, they do have a responsibility for ensuring that the environment enables the performer to carry out their personal health responsibility. In addition to statutory health and safety duties, a culture and environment that encourages and supports healthy practice will help performers. As a very basic example, hydration is vital for performers – if there is no water available in a venue, it becomes difficult for the performer to practise this behaviour. What if the acoustics are so bad in a venue that the only way performers can hear themselves is turning the amps up excessively? What if there is a culture in your organisation that discriminates against certain groups or individuals, contributing to negative social relationships and mental health problems? What if the people you depend on don’t know where to go for help when they need it?

If this is a structure we can organise around, then what would a Health Manifesto for the Performing Arts look like?

1. Everyone in the performing arts world needs to understand what healthy practice means, from the educator to the employer, individual performance professionals and any organisation or individual working in the business (managers, promoters, agents, labels etc).
2. Everyone needs to know where and how to get clinical help when they need it.
3. All funding options should be explored to develop a system-wide approach to providing for the health needs of performers, combining charitable funding sources with other sources of support including industry-specific insurance schemes, access to work funding etc.

We welcome responses by email at info@bapam.org.uk

There are intrinsic relationships between health and performance excellence, and educational and clinical expertise in the performing arts. In overcoming medical problems, Ä¢¹½tv diagnostic and medical expertise can be complemented by performance technique and lifestyle and health-related guidance. In a new joint clinic at BAPAM, Mr Mark Phillips, Hand Surgeon, and Penelope Roskell, Professor of Piano at Trinity Laban, are exploring this opportunity for clinicians and educators to provide each other with unique insight and feedback. We asked them to tell us more about this innovative approach.

Could you explain the idea behind the joint clinic and why you decided to do it?

Mark Phillips: In my experience when treating musicians I found quite an overlap between the physician’s knowledge and the Ä¢¹½tv physiotherapist/hand therapist’s knowledge, who’s an expert in musicians. But I soon realised there was a huge gap for the third element which is filled by the expert tutor on that instrument. I happen to be a trumpet player so as a musician I have some insight into the patient but that’s not enough when it comes to some of the issues they face. I can relate to some of the psychological performance issues, but the expectation patients have is of someone that can really understand how the technical demands of the instrument interface with the physiological problems they’re having and anatomical problems they may have and the outcome of the clinical assessment.

Penelope Roskell: The knowledge we have between us is enormous. My students have included musicians with injuries for 40 years, and so we fill in the gaps. Seeing musicians together in a joint clinic is very important because you can then see the whole picture and then decide on the best way forward. Sometimes it may be steroid injection and sometimes it may be surgery. But sometimes it may be that a tweak or a change of technique will solve that problem and reduce the need for further intervention. So, seeing them together we can get to the root cause, which we can’t always do if seeing them independently.

How do you decide if a patient would benefit from this dual approach? What can a patient expect at a typical joint session? How do you each approach the patient?

How do you prepare for a joint clinic session?

Mark Philips: Normally I will contact Penelope to say I’ve got a patient or she may say she has a student. We will both select patients for this clinic.

Penelope Roskell: Sometimes Mark will send me over a video of that person playing, so I’ll have a chance to look at it and pick out the obvious problems about what I think may be causing it. I’ll also have a clinic letter which will give some sort of background.

Mr Phillips: We then meet up for a coffee and chat about the patient. So then the patient comes in, and if it’s my patient I present it to Penelope and on one occasion Penelope presented the patient. And then we do the history in the normal way, present findings and run through it all. I then suggest what may be the anatomical or physiological problem and how that relates to this person’s technique. The technique may have worked well for a long time but now there’s a problem which is unique to them. Looking at the technique can help if I’m referring to Penelope. Or similarly if Penelope is referring to me is there a way that some of my interventions such as hand therapy or injections or my approach to examination would throw some light on the matter. It’s that overlap which is invaluable really.

Penelope Roskell: So for instance one of my students came to the last clinic and she had problems for the last year and had come to me for that reason. And Mark gave her quite a different diagnosis to what she had been given in the past, which then informed me. So now we are working slightly differently in the lessons that I have with her privately, having now had this intervention from Mark and he also suggested a steroid injection which we are waiting to see the results to. We can then see the whole picture about the ways forward, because there isn’t always one solution. A patient may need a steroid injection or piano playing adjustments to the technique.

Mark Phillips: It’s multi-faceted, there may be Alexander Technique, hand therapy and it may be someone looking at their posture. I learn so much by looking at Penelope tutoring at the piano in terms of elbow position, shoulder position and what impact that has in terms of the way the fingers lie on the key for example. Each presentation has its own unique cocktail of remedies really.

There are complex multi-faceted problems by the time they come here and it comes down to how we triage these patients essentially. I don’t bring every pianist to this clinic.

Penelope Roskell: It’s inevitably going to be someone with a piano related injury. If they’ve broken their wrist by falling down the stairs then they should go straight Mark. Whereas it’s different when it’s something like accumulated stress from years of playing with a technique which is a tiny bit off balance. They may be very experienced players and their technique has lasted them well, but there’s something that just tips it over.

Mark Phillips: What I see in my patients is that half of them have the same problem as everybody else and that may affect how they use their instrument. And the other half have instrument related problems and it may be a combination of the two. And say if someone broke their wrist a year ago and it may be throwing out their elbow, their shoulder or their posture and it may well be a good way down the line that it’ll come to me that a session with Penelope would be helpful. Because it may be to do with their elbow and shoulder which may be making some notes inaccessible and we can work around. They’re so unique each of these cases an each of them would have their own relative roles for the two of us sitting together and discussing the case. It would be good to extend this to guitar, violin and cello and get tutors to do a similar thing. And it’s pretty unique, I don’t think there’s anyone else out there in the world doing it.

What do you feel are the benefits of having an educator in a clinical setting?

Penelope Roskell: It is a very formal environment which is a positive thing and it focusses everything which is very important.

It is a sort of pilot, it’s the first of its kind and I think it is very valuable and let’s hope that other clinics may take the idea from this and develop that further.

What are the direct benefits for patients of having the educator and clinician in the same room in a clinical setting?

Mark Phillips: We often find that patients are often reticent about coming to these clinics. They really don’t want to look at their own techniques and I suppose they remember back to days when they were being tutored and they feel self-conscious. They have to want to come to this clinic and to be looked at. It isn’t like going for a piano lesson or being taught. We are looking to see whether there’s anything about their technique that may be in anyway connected to the clinical problem they have. So we’re not trying to look at the way they play from any other perspective than that. People play in lots of different ways. Also videos are really useful, anyone with a smartphone can record themselves. When we look at them we can slow them down, go back over a sequence, look at it carefully, look at it together and see how that relates to their clinical problem.

Penelope Roskell: There is something different about the joint clinics, because I’m there involved in the consultation I’m able to ask them questions from my own point of view so that I’m well informed as to how best to help them in the future. Because a piano teacher is not qualified to diagnose and that is absolutely number one and nor am I qualified to answer questions that students sometimes ask me, like should I have that steroid injection or that operation and it’s not for me to advise on that but in this situation between the three of us we can discuss the best way forward viewing it from all the different angles.

Any challenges you are finding with the joint approach?

Mark Phillips: It’s 30 minutes long, which is short. We are just getting into our flow by half an hour.

We haven’t had a chance to find out what patients think, especially how they feel about the added value of seeing us both together.

The four patients we have seen in this format have individually expressed to us they thought it was a good session and it stimulated a lot of discussion and ideas. It would be great in the future to include a hand therapist and do a proper multi-disciplinary clinic. Hand surgeons always work very closely with hand therapists. Because there are so many different joints in the hand and different diagnoses. In the hand you’ve got unique problems to one finger or there will be a combination of problems. So your hand therapy is always bespoke, it’s all tailor made to that patient so you have to discuss each patient individually and with musicians it’s even more so.

Certainly with the three most commonest instruments this is going to be a major area of growth in the next ten years and it’s very exciting.

During the half an hour the patients sense the trust we have with each other (Penelope: we work very well as a team, we both have a lot of respect for each other’s knowledge. So I think they go away feeling they’re whole picture has been seen and assessed and we are seeing them as an individual with a problem that can be resolved.)

All patients have been bought over by the end of the 30 minute sessions. You can see the reticence and slight nervousness at the start of the half an hour turning into trust and outpouring of confidence and sharing of the problem and by half an hour we are in to the nitty gritty aren’t we. The output of that is usually I will see them again or Penelope will see them again.

What they can do is continue seeing Penelope for a while and see me in the clinic two months later and see how things have been going on in the meantime. And because we know each other well we can send secure emails back and forth and stay in touch.