Now that we are approaching the end of 2010, it will soon be time for our resolutions (or now time for pre-resolutions, as the case may be).
And as you cast your eye toward self-improvement, might I suggest one of the important fundamentals to the healthy and productive writer: exercise.
Not only because writing is a solitary pursuit, that writers sometime need the occasional mood-lift while pondering the depths of the human condition, and because we want to keep writing as long as Louis Auchincloss.
No. Not just those reasons.
Do it for the creativity boost!
I can’t quantify this. I don’t know if it’s been proven by science (Livia? UPDATE: see her comment for the science).I don’t know if it’s the endorphins talking. All I know is that when I’m stuck on a plot challenge or can’t think of where things go next, I exercise. And it’s amazing how it unlocks the brain.
And even from a macro sense, I find myself more productive and happier during weeks where I exercise. The ideas and words just tend to flow better.
Am I alone on this? Does exercise help your creativity?
Photo by Gruban via Creative Commons
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I run two miles every morning, celtic music running into my ears via mp3 player. I usually sing loudly as I go, and am ignored by the continuous line of pine trees (I live in a tree farm). The days that I don't run, I don't usually write. So yes, I have to run or there isn't another chapter!
Oh, lord yes. I've commented about this before, many times. I'm hardly a jock, but I absolutely have to get out and get some oxygen to my brain. It helps me problem-solve, keeps me from getting hideously depressed and at least prevents a few of those middle-aged pounds from accumulating on my butt from all the "butt in chair" (the rest of them, what can I do?)
Plus I have a bad back from an accident, and if I don't exercise regularly, I have really bad pain to deal with, and nobody likes that.
I totally agree with this post. Usually I walk a couple of miles a day around a track, and the whole time I just keep getting fantastic ideas while also working out plot elements and characterizations. Recently I even dug out an old tape recorder from my news reporting days and carry it with me while walking to record my ideas because I was forgetting far too many of them by the time I got home.
Exercise definitely helps my writing! And even if it didn't, how could you say no?
Absolutely! The other thing is doing something outside myself for someone else. There's something about the look in someone's eyes when they "receive" from me that makes the gears and wheels in my head turn faster. My heart is engaged, but it propels my thoughts to a deeper level of character development. It makes me feel *human* and my writing reflects that vulnerability, I hope.
Good to hear from you, Nathan. Happy Christmas!
J.T. Shea
Lol, my bad!
Works for me AFTER I write. I pretty much have to write first anyway or my day is screwed.
Not only is exercising helpful to stimulate creativity, it is vital to a writer's health. We tend to sit for long stretches at a time. Not good, especially as we get older. It is so extremely difficult to break away when we get in a writing groove, but sometimes we must. I began to suffer some major muscle pain in the past, so I now try to force myself to take breaks and go for a walk or hit the gym. 9 times out of 10 I find doing so will also help rejuvenate my creativity and thus, help improve my work.
Preach it from the mountaintop, brother! Exercise boosts self-confidence, which lets you get your mind off of yourself for a minute. In my experience, if I am not happy with myself physically, it consumes too much of my thoughts. I don't mean in a vain way–but in a health-conscious and self-respect-having way.
So I exercise to be a happier me with more mental focus on all things creative. And I know a teeny amount about exercising for the sake of restoring focus–I lost 49 pounds in 2009. One year and four months later and *not a pound* is back. Thanks for the post, Nathan!
There's nothing like the pain of running to remind me how pleasant solving a plot problem is.
Does it help me with creativity? Not in the least. In fact, thanks to lymphedema tarda, walking around is pretty much guaranteed to exhaust me, leaving me little energy for writing or daily chores and, most likely, with swollen legs and a lot of pain for the next few days.
Going for regular walks and getting fresh air in my snoot isn't worth suffering bone-aching pain and being unable to sit, stand or walk without feeling that my feet are resting on knife blades pointing upward. It just isn't.
Does obsessively clicking "refresh" on your email after you send a query to an agent count as exercise for your fingers? 🙂 Seriously, I agree. Some of my best ideas come when I'm focused on something else, be it power walking or showering or cleaning the cat's hairballs off the carpet.
I'm a deep believer that when your body is busy and mind relaxed, those connections form that didn't seem to be gelling before, so I'm with you. If I'm REALLY stuck, I don't even take my iPod.
Definitely! I always go for a long walk when I'm stuck with something in my writing or when I simply need to clear my head. It's also a great way to keep in shape.
Feeling blocked? A little downward dog and the blood flows back to the right place and brings them lots of ideas!
Definitely! Great stress relief, and the adrenaline seems to help my creativity!
You are absolutely right!
I walk to and from work every day, and I've thought of so many scenes and ideas while walking. The time alone and away from distractions means I can really think about what I want to happen in a scene or plot, and it's great to have that time while still doing something purposeful.
Great post, you are definitely not alone in this.
I'm totall with you here. Exercise helps me solve story problems and boost my mood. I even have a treadmill desk and spend part of my writing day walking.
Totally agree! I love to run while listening to my ipod and when I'm concentrating on a story arc, it seems like every other song is describing my characters. The connections I feel to my characters strengthens and it helps me to add depth to them and their situations.
Nathan, that's the second time you post something I experience right after. Perhaps it's just because I notice it more? ^^
There's been a lot of snow up here in Quebec City, and let me tell you, I'm getting a *lot* of ideas while shoveling. Take that, plotholes! Winter is winning over you! 😀
i noticed this BIG TIME during NaNoWriMo. normally, i run 3-4 miles per day, plus weight lifting and stretching. i'll occasionally throw in some cycling or swimming as well. i was doing really well until my kids got sick during the 2nd week of november. they were sick, so i didn't work out. my writing slowed considerably and it was a struggle to get a few sentences down. then my husband and i got sick, so again, no exercise, which meant craptacular writing. after thanksgiving weekend (during which i didn't exercise either), i got back into it. everyone was finally healthy, so i made myself get back to the gym. i'll tell you what, i cranked out about 15,000 or my 50,000 words in those last 3 days. about half of it on 11/30.
So if it is mutually and equally compatible, if I complete the London Marathon this year, maybe I will complete my novel too?
Sponsors for Whizz-Kidz welcome – and fitness/marathon advice in the forum perhaps? 😉
Exercise is key! Gets the blood flowing, gets me out of the house and away from the computer, and it's a change of scenery. All very important 🙂
I also teach yoga. So if I don't have time to get a workout in and I'm really stuck/blocked/frustrated, I'll try an inversion in the house.
I highly recommend it! It literally flips your perspective, turns your world upside-down, and irrigates your brain with blood. If you're new to yoga/inversions, almost everyone can do downward-facing dog, or just sit/stand and fold at the waist – anything that gets your head below your heart. Give it a try! 🙂
It's great for writers to remember to exercise regularly. Thanks for the post!
Going for a run this morning! The frozen beard effect is always charming, right? Right?
My internist says running helps her with puzzling cases. Often out running the diagnosis will pop into her head. For me, it is frustrating to have a great idea while on bike, on run or in pool and not have a place to jot it down.
Most definitely. Gets the blood pumping, endorphins running, good feelings going. Love it.
I could not agree more, Nathan! I do yoga almost every day, and I have had countless ideas come to me while on the mat.
These post came at a great time. I've just made some pre-resolutions and one of them was to excercise. I made this one knowing there was a high likelihood I would fail.
Maybe this is just the extra boost I need?
There's lots of material on exercise improving learning acquisition and recall, mainly by affecting the activity of a growth factor called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in the hippocampus.
BDNF is signaled strongly by inflammation, stress hormones, and other such signaling events which are stimulated by exercise. This is more of a long-term effect, as — per the name — BDNF is involved in the growth and plasticity of neurons in the hippocampus.
The post-exercise euphoria and creativity boost is likely a function of endorphins (your body's own morphine) and increased blood flow to the brain; there's some research into this but not as much as you'd want to draw real conclusions.
Hmmm. Interesting. I will try this exercise you speak of. No, seriously, I never thought of using the pursuit of better heart health as a tool to help writers block/indirection. So thanks!!
Actually, I think it's the switch between mental and physical activity that boosts creativity. If I'm stuck, I do the washing up or the hoovering, or clean out a cupboard. It's not technically exercise, but it is changing to a type of activity that is done by the body rather than the mind. Disengaging conscious thought (and giving yourself the fiction that you're doing something constructive and not procrastinating) allows your sub-conscious to sort out your writing problems.
I know this is true from experience: I come up with more ideas and solve more problems when I'm running. Also, I've been known to sit on a weight bench between sets and write down ideas. The people at the gym are occasionally not amused by this….
I agree completely! Doing anything to get away from your work for a while can provide a new perspective, but there's something special about breaking a sweat.
I'm terrible when it comes to exercising, but I do find a walk in cold air always clears the cobwebs and I am usually brainstorming (without paper at hand) while I walk.
There's some interesting research being done related to health and sedentary lifestyles (reported for example at https://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/10/sedentary-physiology-part-4-future-direction/).
I've always found exercise to be a reasonably pretty good stress reducer. But the most dramatic effect I've felt was on both my creativity and alertness. This was years ago when I was writing a dissertation day and night. On days that I decided I had to devote all day to writing, I managed to stay up until 9 or 10 at night, but I wasn't terribly productive. On days when I convinced myself to start the day with a half hour walk, against my instinct to get to work right away, I ALWAYS was able to focus better and almost always able to continue writing a good 3 hours longer. Strangely, walks in the afternoon or evening weren't nearly as effective. After a couple weeks of noticing this effect, I started walking every morning.
I think overall, you are correct, but not quite for me. I'm a competitive marathon runner, and when I am in training, a lot of my exercise is very intense and long in duration. Basically after a 30mi run, your brain does not function normally for a couple days, or at least mine doesn't.
That makes it difficult to write as you can imagine, plus I require extra sleep and I have a day job to boot.
But now that I'm in 'vacation mode' and I do little exerciwse, I am far more productive in my writing.
Overall I agree with you, but you should mention that you can over do it, and then your writing will suffer.
What a wonderfully helpful blog — you are a creative super star!
Exercise definitely helps my creativity, although in my case it doesn't take the form of running. I did jog for 2-1/2 years, but had to stop after I was able to run for an hour at a time because my ankles and feet began to give me definite signals they were not coming along for the ride. (I am 56 years old.) These days my exercise takes the form of bodyweight training, some weightlifting, stretching, and active range-of-motion exercises, including capoeira.
Beyond improving creativity, I find physical exercise — especially the kind of exercise I do — improves every single aspect of my being, from mental acuity, to the ability to handle emotional stress, to the ability to get things done quickly and efficiently, to reducing my likelihood of injury. It forces moderation in my vices (such as drinking) and healthy living habits in other areas of my life (such as getting proper sleep, staying hydrated, and eating sensibly). It's far better than any drug because it actually teaches your brain to manufacture its own endorphins, and get a high out of maintaining and increasing your overall health.