Updated October 17, 2026

Ask any pro-am student and they’ll tell you the day they got “hooked” on ballroom dancing. They got a little taste through a sample like a free group class or a studio party. Personally, I started with dance lessons for my wedding. Like any addictive recreational drug, ballroom dance provides a wonderful high…at a cost. Before you realize it, you find yourself spending more and more to maintain that high. Unlike recreational drugs, ballroom offers some positive side effects.

Here are 13 side effects I experienced on my ballroom dance journey. How many can you relate to?

1. I made great friends.

Support is so important on this dance journey. Supporting and being supported by others on the same journey is motivating and rejuvenating. I still feel energized whenever I’m able to share my dancing experiences with others who know exactly what I’m talking about.

2. Within the first six months of dancing, I dropped two jean sizes.

The weight loss according to the scale wasn’t much, somewhere around five pounds. But my body had slimmed and toned with all of those stretching and sustained movements. The downside was none of my clothes fit me anymore!

3. My overall mood improved.

The energy I got from dancing was so positive, it was difficult to stay grumpy on bad days. And I had frequent “bad days.” Or at least I used to! I owed a big part of this mood shift to my teacher. He was so focused and encouraging during our lessons, whatever emotional baggage I carried into the studio that day was forgotten within the first 10 minutes.

4. I grew two inches.

No joke, before I started ballroom dancing, my height was 5′ 4″. After a couple years of training for pro-am competitions, I was measuring 5′ 6″. It’s amazing what improved posture will do.

5. I was forced to face deepset insecurities and fears.

This one was unexpected. I thought I was just learning dance steps, but it turned out that I was also learning to trust, be vulnerable, open myself to subjective criticism, and express emotions that I normally hide from public eyes. This led to another side effect:

6. I gained self-confidence.

Not just as a dancer, but in other areas of my life. I felt more comfortable voicing my opinion and standing up for myself.

7. My fashion taste evolved to center around whatever was best for dancing.

If it wasn’t stretchy or flowy, I wasn’t wearing it.

8. I couldn’t listen to music without starting to choreograph a dance to it in my head.

The search for good practice songs was also endless.

9. Strangers started asking me if I was a dancer.

It’s amazing what good posture plus the calm confidence to look straight ahead will do to change people’s first impressions of you. I admit that I got a total ego boost from that question.

10. My view of money changed.

Pre-ballroom, I thought of money in terms of rent, gas and food. It changed to dance lessons and competition entry fees. Dance lessons became a line item in my monthly budget.

11. Phrases like “you should be the inside leg” and “fix your head” sound completely normal to me.

If you know, you know. 😉

12. Any space could become practice space.

The choreography for my various competition dance routines was constantly running through my head. You could catch me practicing my open fan in front of the big bathroom mirror at work or marking my routines in the driver’s seat during rush hour traffic.

13. Withdrawal was a bitch, especially in the beginning.

If I went a week without going to the studio, it felt like I had been gone for months. No lessons for two weeks? I was positive I would forget everything I learned.

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Any of these sound familiar? Share in the comments what side effects you’ve experienced.

If you want to learn more about what to expect as you venture into the world of ballroom dance, check out my e-book, Dance Diaries: Learning Ballroom Dance: What I Wish I Had Known.