Britney Spears dances off the strains of life because rehearsal spaces and studios are like therapy meccas for the pop star.

The Toxic singer reveals she hits the dance floor whenever she's feeling down, stressed or troubled in her new MTV documentary, Britney Spears: For The Record.

She explains, "Everybody has a world that they create around themselves. If I have a lot of nervous energy, when I start dancing it all goes away and I just feel emotion."

And she admits the dancefloor helped her control her emotions over the past 12 months, which saw her twice committed to hospital with apparent mental issues and in the midst of a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband Kevin Federline over their two young sons.

She explains, "People think that when you go through something in your life you need to go to therapy, but for me art is therapy because it's like you're expressing yourself in such a spiritual way.

"Sometimes you don't need to use words to go through what you need to go through. Sometimes it's an emotion you need to feel when you dance that you need to touch on and the only thing that can touch it is when you move a certain way."

The MTV special airs in America on 30 November.