Why “Just Relax” Is the Worst Thing You Can Say To A Stressed Partner

By @Justinwelcome

🎶 Sometimes you feel tension in a dance before a single step even happens. Not in the music, not in the atmosphere, but in the body standing in front of you.

🤔 Have you ever been told to relax during a dance, and what did it actually make you feel?

💭 We often believe relaxation is something that can be switched on once we pay attention or put a word or action for it. Yet on the dance floor, the more someone tries to relax consciously, the more awareness they feel about doing it “correctly.” What is meant as reassurance can quietly become another expectation to meet, another stress, another reason… not to relax. 

💃 At a festival in 2025 in Lyon, I met a partner I hadn’t shared a dance with for a while. Warm and familiar connection, yet something felt slightly held back on her side. She was shaking in a way that could not go unnoticed, though I did not say anything, so it had to come from her — she apologized for not flowing as usual. I naively said, with my largest possible smile, “no worries, just take time to relax.” Instead of softening, her energy became more careful. She started thinking more, which triggered more mistakes, building more stress. Maybe I did not smile enough 🙂.

Under the “Ironic Process Theory”, Psychologist Daniel Wegner demonstrated that when people are told to control an internal state (“don’t be nervous,” “relax”), the brain activates two simultaneous systems: a conscious system trying to relax, and an unconscious monitoring system checking whether relaxation is happening. The monitoring system keeps scanning for signs of tension. Result: Attention stays focused on stress itself.

In dance terms, instead of feeling the music and the connection, she began internally asking: Am I relaxed yet? Am I doing it right? Can he feel my tension? This increases cognitive load and prevents automatic movement.

🧠 Later, I understood she wasn’t tense because of me specifically — she was worried about advanced steps she thought might come from me, based on what she knew about my dancing style. And even though she genuinely enjoyed dancing together. As a matter of fact, that dance happened without any advanced technique, yet not with the usual effortless flow.

🤍 Sometimes “relax” sounds less like permission and more like pressure to feel differently than we already do. Comfort often arrives not when tension is corrected, but when expectations and anticipations quietly fade and leave place to pure comfort, safety and trust, like music lowering so two people can finally hear each other.  

Today I know that “just relax” is always better expressed without words — simply through the embrace and the attitude.

❓ Have you ever been told to relax during a dance, and what did it actually make you feel? At which moment verbal communication becomes necessary on the dance floor? Lead the discussion on social media and follow us to know everything about our next events!

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