This isn’t one of those articles that claims you have to do a certain thing (in this case, work out) to become the best writer you can possibly be. After all, while our minds and bodies all operate on 24-hour internal clocks, we’re all different because we wake up and go to sleep at different times, we have different likes and interests, we have different professions, and we’re not all writing the under the same genres.
With that said, if you’re looking for a possible way to improve your writing routine and therefore overall writing, then we encourage you to add working out, exercise, or any form of physical activity to your daily writing diet.
While writing exercises can help break you out of a funk and give you more creative ideas, the same thing can be said about working out.
Exercise is good for overall health
Exercise is good for overall health and that’s, of course, beneficial whether you’re a full-time novelist, you drive a taxi, or you work for an immediate medical care center in Staten Island, NY.
Here are just some of the health benefits from regular exercise (via Mayo Clinic):
- Controls weight.
- Combats health conditions and disease.
- Improves your mood (which can help your work).
- Boosts energy (which can give you more energy to do your writing).
- Promotes better sleep (sleep is essential in any profession).
“For most healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes a week of vigorous aerobic activity a week, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity,” the Mayo Clinic also advises.
Working out can lead to better decision-making
Believe it or not, working out can help your decision-making, which can come into play when it comes to good writing habits, or possibly when you’re trying to decide where to take a story.
According to one CEO in Inc.: “Working out can help ensure that you always work with the right people. Balancing physical activity with work provides clarity. It brings a sense of meditative calm and a heightened sense of awareness.”
The same article also states that working out can give you better perspective and get you through a difficult task.
Not only that, but this better decision-making comes into play when making healthy food decisions and taking necessary supplements for your body. While you should always check with supplement manufacturers and health professionals to see what your body specifically needs, your body needs certain vitamins, such as calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B12, fish oil, and many others.
Exercise can make you more creative
This is the big reason why writers should add more exercise to their lives.
According to Business Insider, “Earlier this year, neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki, author of “Healthy Brain, Happy Life,” wrote in Quartz that in addition to its stress-reducing, mind-focusing, productivity-inducing, and memory-enhancing properties, there seems to be some evidence supporting the idea that exercise could help make us more creative. Exercise seems to help people come up with new ideas, which many researchers use as a proxy for thinking creatively.”
Exercise can get you away from your writing and allow you time to think, which is why developing a running routine can be beneficial to your writing and creative endeavors. While it’s tough for many writers to sit down and write for hours on end, little breaks and bursts of work throughout the day, a concept known as chunking, can help spread out your writing and possibly lead to your best work, as well as most productive work. Exercising can help you break up your day so you’re not writing for too many hours in a row.
There are many reasons why exercising can help your writing career. The benefits, realistically, are hard to ignore.