How to Stay Healthy with your Fingers to the Keyboard: A Writer’s Guide
By Vickie Miller
As writers we don’t always have the healthiest examples. Stories of famous writers whose vices are vodka or cigarettes or both, give the impression that we don’t need much more than a buzz and lungs full of nicotine to write the next great novel. The Surgeon General tells us otherwise and deep down, our bodies tell us otherwise too.
How do we stay healthy, though? A writer’s life is sedentary. Our desks are our lives. Our computer screens are our primary interaction with the real world. The longest walk we may take in a day is from our beds to our writing studios. And if our homes are small, that walk might only be a few feet in length.
One way to ensure you’re the healthiest writer you know is to schedule time for your health. Instead of succumbing to tunnel vision where the only people you know are your characters; carve out time for your health. In the same way that you develop writing habits by carving out writing time, you can also develop healthy habits. Since we’re not just our bodies, you’ll want to be sure to include time for your physical, emotional, and mental health.
Whether you favor old fashioned paper planners or wall calendars or are part of the tech movement and sync all of your devices to an electronic calendar, be sure to work on creating habits that promote writer wellness. Plan out your health in the same way you plan your writing activities. This may prove more challenging for writers who work a day job in addition to being a writer, but challenging doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Thankfully there are some simple tricks to pouring health into the writer’s life that also make it possible to generate ideas and all sorts of creative genius. Let’s take a look at some of them.
First: decide when you want to engage in your physical health activities. Are you a morning, noon, or night exercise person? And what kind of physical activity do you want to participate in? Maybe you like exercise videos or walking or running. Pick an activity or a few activities you can rotate through and decide when you want to schedule your physical health into your day.
If possible, build physical activity into your daily routine that doesn’t take time away from writing. For example, if you live a reasonable distance from your place of work and have the physical fitness to do so, bike or walk to and from your office.
Second: physical health also includes healthy eating. Choose food items from the different food groups that you enjoy and/or are willing to try. Cooking (or learning to cook) can be time consuming, so make sure to plan enough prep time into your daily or weekly calendar. Look for shortcuts that can help you eat healthy without using up precious writing time. Examples include: crockpot meals, purchasing vegetables that are pre-cut, and inviting your partner and/or children to share in the cooking responsibilities.
Also, be sure to include some of the simple things you can do for your physical health such as drinking water, choosing colorful and heart-healthy foods, and limiting your caffeine and sugar intake. If you’re uncertain how to start improving your dietary health, consult your physician or a dietary specialist.
Third: take care of your mental health by engaging in activities that are low in stress and high in relaxation. Writing can be stressful with the various components of unruly characters, struggles with POV, deadlines, revision, and even rejection letters. Participating in healthy relaxation can give writers a reprieve from all of those things. In order to ensure a healthy balance between writerly stress and your mental health, try some of these relaxation techniques:
· A massage can help work out the kinks in your muscles and in your mind.
· Gardening is therapeutic, relaxing, and rewarding. You can plant pretty flowers to look at or even fruits and veggies to go along with the physical health we talked about earlier.
· Keeping a journal allows for reflection and processing life events. Writing in a journal might even spur some creative thoughts for your next writing project.
· Reading…because a good book is just plain good.
In order to write well, the writer has to be well. Don’t neglect your writer wellness. Make all the components of your health as important to you as your writing projects. *Be sure to consult your physician before taking on any physical fitness regime.
Vickie Miller is a writer with an LPC. Although she no longer works directly with patients, Vickie is passionate about self-care. She is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Arts, and uses her passion to help writers. Vickie plays an active role in the 10Minute Novelists group where she is on the admin team and hosts a weekly chat for members about all things writing related, including self-care. Her first novel Soaring Alone is a women’s lit piece about Rachel James, a woman who discovered she’d been kidnapped at birth and now must decide what family means to her. Born in the Midwest, Vickie lives in remote Alaska with her family and giant puppy, Omar. You can find out more about her developmental editing services and semi-adventurous life on her website: www.authorsinkalaska.com. She’s also on Facebook @AuthorVickieMiller and Twitter @VickieM_author.
Chair & Pen publishes stories on the writing process and the writing life. It is edited and curated by Writing Coach Annalisa Parent. To learn more about how to work with Annalisa, visit www.DateWithTheMuse.com
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