Should You Write on an Empty Stomach?
Does anyone really know?
In a former job I was involved in a lot of selection processes for staff positions and for internships. My colleague and I noticed that we kept making the same mistake in these processes: interviewing candidates directly after lunch.
Once we’d eaten we suddenly had so little energy that we noticed we would come across as fairly indifferent to candidates, and wouldn’t necessarily ask all of the questions we might have if we had more energy.
It was brought to our attention when we finished one interview and another colleague said ‘wow you really didn’t like him did you?’. We actually did, and he got the internship, but it seemed like our full stomachs were absorbing all of our enthusiasm and giving off the wrong message.
It’s undeniable that eating or not eating affects our moods, the way our brains are working and just about everything else in our lives. But what does it do to our writing?
Hemingway never actually advised us to ‘write drunk and edit sober’.
In reality his writing routine began in the morning, ‘as soon after first light as possible’. The key was that he started early, not necessarily that he did it on an empty stomach.
Many writers are advocates of writing first thing in the morning, some after breakfast, some before having anything to eat, or even before coffee.
Reported benefits include increased creativity, better focus and a ‘hunger’ to get it done. Pun maybe intended… I’m not sure.
We experience peaks and troughs of attention throughout the day, and it makes sense to utilise a peak to get your writing done.
Productivity master Daniel Pink estimates that about 80% of people experience their ‘peak’ in the morning, which might account for how common the ‘jump out of bed and write’ advice is.
But still no word on whether you should eat.
Writing first thing in the morning and on an empty stomach would mean you were writing in a fasted state. Some of the benefits of this kind of state can include improved focus and greater clarity. It’s no coincidence that fasting has been used throughout history by some of the greatest thinkers.
Fasting doesn’t work for everyone though. Some people find it easy to skip breakfast or to practice intermittent fasting. Others find it virtually impossible. Still more aren’t able to due to environmental factors.
There’s no point in forcing yourself to do something that doesn’t work for your body, in the vain hope that you’ll achieve Gandhi’s mental clarity. If your brain is distracted by hunger, you’re just not going to get your best work done.
Personally I have breakfast some days, and on others I don’t. It depends on a lot of things, from what I had to eat the day before, to what time of the month it is, if it’s warm or cold outside, if I’ve done or am going to do exercise… I find it easy to switch between breakfast and no breakfast, but my productivity remains higher in the mornings regardless.
You might have heard that judges are more lenient after lunch.
In fact, studies show that parole prisoners have an up to 65% better chance of receiving a favourable outcome if their case is heard right after lunch compared to immediately before.
This is often cited as showing that we make better decisions, or are generally just happier, after we eat.
However, further examination of the data shows that it’s not got much to do with the eating aspect at all. The pre vs post-lunch difference comes down to decision fatigue and the fact that a break allows the judges to recover energy to make more reasoned decisions.
Perhaps that’s closer to an answer than we’ll get from any historical figures or dieting guides. Most people write best in the morning because their brain has just had a break, and they’re able to make better and more efficient decisions. The kind of decisions that occur at least every other word when you’re writing.
So to eat or not to eat? The short answer is that it’s up to you. If you enjoy the fasted clarity that you get from not eating until after writing, then go for it. If all you’re going to do during your writing time is daydream about a fry up, writing on an empty stomach probably isn’t for you.
