by Jenna Kalinsky.
Ah, the good old days. When most writers took “exercise” in the form of chain smoking or reaching for the scotch. But today’s writers and idea-makers have discovered that exercise, from gentle walking and chair workouts to extreme marathons, is the real secret to great writing.
Given all of the positive effects exercise has on the body, namely:
it’s easy to see how exercise best positions us intellectually, emotionally, and physically to achieve work of a higher quality.
As writers, we’re trained to believe that to write our best work, we need to put our bum in the seat and stay there.
Further, we augment all that writing with the latest writing software, earning writing degrees and devouring books on craft, and curating ideal physical writing conditions (fluffy dog at your feet, limitless mug of tea, and soy candles positioned just so).
None of these strategies is wrong— after all, if you want to write, you have to do it!—but without balancing it with exercise, rather than helping you yield your best writing, all those sedentary good intentions can actually drag your writing (and you) down.
If you have noticed that your writing feels stale or less inspired because of “extreme couching,” then instead of writing more, it’s time to get moving.
The awesome thing about any amount of exercise is its positive effects are immediate, making the connection between exercise and how it is the secret to great writing– really not so secret after all.
We do tend to get into our heads as writers, but to be holistic about it, our bodies include our minds as one of the muscles we want to strengthen and protect, making our bodies in total our primary writing tool.
Exercise strengthens your muscles so they can support you as you sit and write or come to your ideas most easily. Stronger muscles may also prevent isolated hiccups like repetitive strain injury or lower back pain.
The overall body conditioning is good, but the core is where things get serious for writers.
It’s just too easy to slump over your keyboard, type from a reclined position on the sofa with your neck at a weird angle, or curl up in a chair to scribble in a notebook.
(Go ahead; I’ll wait while you straighten up.)
It doesn’t help that these postures are romanticized in the media: writers in giant socks hunched over their notebooks or people curled into pretzels by a fire.
(I mean, come on. Is this not one of the cutest things you’ve ever seen?)
In real life application, though, sitting funny cramps your muscles and prevents good blood flow. Over time, all the bad sitting and spinal compression from holding your head at an odd angle to see the computer screen or paper can cause you to develop back and neck pain plus a host of other ailments.
Taking time every day to do exercises that target your transversus abdominis, or your core muscles, however, does more than give you a cute 6-pack (though those are not too bad to trot out at the pool either).
If done regularly, core exercises strengthen the muscles around the spine so your body can support healthy posture far longer into your writing years.
Good posture is not only aesthetic pleasing; it also helps avoid compressed disks, back and neck pain, headaches, and other spinal problems that come from a saggy infrastructure and encourages far better blood and energy flow.
With all that goodness abounding in your body, you end up with greater stamina for focusing during your writing sessions and are able to protect your primary tool longer into the future.
Karen Moffatt, a postural alignment specialist in the Egoscue method and owner of Kettlebell Wellness, recommends that you pause your work and do the following exercises 2x/ day, 3-5 days/week as you’re able:
Any movement break at all while you’re writing is a good idea, and these core exercises done full out or modified from a chair are a wonderful investment in your body and your writing.
Ultimately, every movement that puts some stress on your core muscles, breaks you away from a habitual slouch, and teaches your body how great it feels to sit up straight is a good one.
My dad loves this joke:
Dad: How do you know a happy jogger?
Me: How?
Dad: By the bugs in his teeth!
If you’ve done it you know: Even a few minutes of moving the blood makes you feel lighter, more emotionally level, and energized.
Exercise is fantastic for juicing up your cognitive function, or as Katherine Boere in Nature Magazine phrases it:
Acute exercise drives improvements in cognition via increased cerebral blood flow (CBF) to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex- a region explicitly associated with executive function. […] several studies have found increases in dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine in the prefrontal cortex post-exercise; all indicated to be involved in neuromodulating behaviors such as attention, reward, learning, and memory.
(Yep. What she said.)
There are numerous mental health benefits that come from exercise, some direct and some indirect. For example, exercise in any form helps you get better sleep. Additionally, the regular appearance of endorphins in your brain (the “happy hormone”) over time reduces stress, anxiety, and elevates your mood.
Walking in particular is helpful because it stimulates creative thinking and problem-solving This is due to increased blood flow to the brain, sensorial stimulation, and forward physical movement, which logistically invites connection-making and greater ideation.
(Swimming, because it is also forward moving, can have a similar effect. Writer Scott Elliott composed an entire novel in his head while doing laps in his university pool.)
This study from Stanford University found that those who walk show a 60% increase in creative flow over those who sit still!
To go even further and get the greatest mental health/cognitive function bang for your buck from walking, doing so in nature gives exponentially greater feelings of wellness and calm over walking in an urban setting or on a treadmill.
If you’re feeling listless or uninspired, by getting outside and hitting the pavement (or better, tree-lined path), or moving in ways that make sense for you, you’re doing amazing things for your mind, your body, and your writing.
Physical activity can also improve concentration and mental clarity, helping you feel more able to overcome any blocks that arise and maintain a stronger focus on your project. Studies have shown that acute bouts of physical activity, such as a 20-minute walk or jog or exercises done in a bed or chair, enhance concentration for up to one hour afterwards.
In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning.
Being fitter to recognize the larger picture and have a more pragmatic relationship to the ups and downs that come with writing as a result is a huge win for any writer.
Because let’s be real: those ups and downs aren’t going anywhere; it’s only how we deal with them that’s what changes.
Endorphins, or the body’s natural “mood lifters” that are secreted during exercise are wonderful for lightening a writer’s burden and making us feel calmer and more capable.
You’ve heard of a “runner’s high”? That’s a real thing. (See aforementioned Dad joke). But these hormones don’t only show up during hard workouts; any exercise that elevates your heart rate, even a little, brings them on.
What’s more, endorphins don’t just boost your mood and dip; they leave you feeling an overall improved sense of well-being, lower stress levels, and reduced anxiety for a long time after you’re done exercising.
If you’re a writer, you’re probably susceptible to some stress and/or anxious feelings- it’s one of the unfortunate side effects of accessing our hearts and bringing our inside worlds out. Exercise mitigates all of that and helps bring us into balance.
That’s why regular exercise makes a person an all-around better and more functional individual and resultantly is the secret to one being able to do great writing.
A steady infusion of endorphins makes you more prepared to meet the challenges that come every day. That emotional resilience helps you deal with the roller coaster effects of the creative process, editorial work, publishing, and trying to get your work into readers’ hands.
Running is analogous with writing—both practices feed one another. Running feeds my writing and the inverse is also true; writing feeds my running. Running produces perspective—giving me the space to observe the world and my thoughts. Writing helps me understand and interpret my lived experiences.
~ Runner, Fitness/Wellness Expert, and author of Find Your Stride: A Personal Path to Sustainable Nutrition and Training, Emily Rudow
Throughout history, some writers have understood the value of exercise and how it affected their writing not because research told them it was healthy but because they felt it for themselves.
✦ Henry David Thoreau’s literary legacy is based on his relationship to nature (his book, Walden came after living for two years in a 10×15 foot cabin in Walden Woods, Massachusetts). He credited his long daily walks for inspiring his writing.
✦ Virginia Woolf was known for walking around London, choosing different neighborhoods depending on whether she needed the bustling stimulation of a busy downtown or to “have space to spread my mind out in.”
✦ Franz Kafka took nightly walks, using the time to think and reflect, which helped him develop ideas for his stories.
We also have gotten to see first-hand how many writers have brought their movement and relationship to exercise into their writing as a subject:
all extol the virtue of exercise as being the secret to their great writing (and their creative output in general).
Nowadays, given that fitness is part of the mainstream culture, exponentially more writers exercise as well as incorporate their relationship to it into their writing.
This combination of exercise as a lifestyle and as subject of their writing makes the work these writers do and how they move all part of the work of being human. Just as nature intended.
✦ Stephen King credits exercise with helping clear his mind and boosting his creativity.
✦ Prolific author Joyce Carol Oates wrote an article for The New York Times, “To Invigorate Literary Mind, Start Moving Literary Feet,” saying she ran, “not as a respite for the intensity of writing but as a function of writing.”
✦ Haruki Murakami’s part training guide, part memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, credits exercise for teaching him the necessary discipline he has needed as a writer.
These works are wonderful for showcasing fitness as both art and lifestyle and exploring the symbiotic connection between the two.
The only downside to exercise (or upside, depending on how you view it) is that it can be challenging: to stay motivated, to find the time, to keep the type of exercise interesting, and having to deal with injury or shifting gears with age.
But you’re a writer. Challenges are part of your daily life. You could shrink from them, or face them head on, letting them define you and making your work stronger. The challenge of exercise is a worthwhile one across every aspect of life as it benefits you in physical, emotional, mental, practical, and creative ways.
And from there, you can enjoy the powerful synergy that enhances your life and enables you to do great things.
Any time the challenges in your writing practice are too burdensome, or you know you’d thrive from working with someone who could motivate and inspire you to new heights, please reach out: we are here to help you achieve all of your writing goals!
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2 Responses
Hah and OK! My writing has been slow a lacking incentive. I can keep my “bum in the chair” but regrettably in front of my flat screen – not my computer. The pandemic didn’t help because the gyms were closed and I was overly cautious even going for a walk outside. Contagion was everywhere. And now the added pounds aren’t helping my aging knees which makes it even harder to exercise. Although I can’t blame the pandemic anymore. Inactivity has become a bad habit.
As always, you inspire me to turn a new page. In a few days it will be a new year and I’ll renew my exercise resolution and resolve to finish my draft (novel number five).
I will do it! Thanks again Jenna.
Marianne, what a great comment- the pandemic definitely made it hard to get communal exercise, and I think much like working with a writing coach or having a writing community for accountability and motivation, we need those things for exercise too! If it helps, I’m cheering for you- I do micro exercises while I’m working, little things like never making sure I have water nearby or keeping my phone across the room. Then when I go get what I need, I take a few minutes and move or stretch. It adds up and helps! Thank you for your always positive energy and comments- I appreciate them so much.