The Health Diaries

Why This Ballet Principal Dancer Is Superstitious About Her Routines

How Tiler Peck stays healthy and levelheaded working six days a week

There are many ways to live a healthy life. The Health Diaries is a weekly series about the habits that keep notable people living well.

Tiler Peck is a principal ballet dancer with the New York City Ballet. Critics and writers have described her as “the most musical dancer of our time,” with “seemingly limitless range” and a “fleetness so astonishing, it’s as if her feet were made of wings.”

As one of the most prominent dancers in the country, it’s of little surprise that Peck, 29, is also one of the busiest. Her normal schedule consists of daylong rehearsals and six-day workweeks. She’s also experimenting with projects outside of Lincoln Center, including stints on Broadway and the recent documentary Ballet Now. In the film, Peck curates and directs a multi-day dance program for the Music Center in Los Angeles.

Peck shared with Medium how she keeps up with her demanding and extremely physical career.

I wake up every day at 9:30 a.m., and I definitely use an alarm clock. I wish I were a morning person, but because I perform at night, I’m not. I live really…