Blogger: Rachel Kent
Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Cynthia touched on today’s tip in her comment yesterday. She wrote, “Healthy bodies build creative minds.” Healthy bodies are also less likely to procrastinate. The endorphins and other benefits of physical exercise increase the ability for your brain to function.
In Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now by Jane B. Burka and Lenora M. Yuen, the authors explain how your brain reacts to stress and how exercise allows more blood to flow to the brain. That increased blood flow heals the Hippocampus, which is a part of the brain where long-term memory resides and affects your ability to see events in context. Exercise also releases endorphins, making you happier about the task at hand, and exercise creates the protein BNDF, which stimulates the growth of new neurons in your brain.
The feelings that cause procrastination–and procrastination itself–can lead to a shrinking of your Hippocampus. Since the Hippocampus is essential to help you to put the task you’re facing into perspective, a shrunken Hippocampus makes it that much harder to overcome procrastination.
Through exercise, the Hippocampus can heal significantly and quickly. The book quotes a study on rats that showed a 30 percent increase in blood flow to the Hippocampus after just three months of regular exercise. So, with a healthier Hippocampus, endorphins, and BNDF, you’re better off all around! You’ll be able to accomplish tasks more easily, and procrastination should be less of a problem.
Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now is fascinating, and I suggest you check it out if you are interested in the psychology (and physiology) behind procrastination.
Eating healthier helps to combat procrastination too! Less sugar and caffeine (*sigh*). More protein, fruits, and veggies.
Starting an exercise routine is a hard thing to do, but I’m sure you won’t regret it.
What are your favorite junk food/beverage habits? What items could you convince yourself to swap them out for?
What can you do today to give your brain a boost?
In what other ways can a writer live more healthily that could help to defeat the enemy, procrastination?
And to think I was just losing weight to get healthier for those mountain climbs! Who knew it would cure procrastination? :o) Okay, maybe not cure, but help.
In all seriousness, I’ve found excercising and my lifestyle change (which btw does not mean a diet…I know where the chocolate is!) would create a discipline that would spill over into other areas of my life and make me more disciplined.
“I want a Hippocampus for Christmas” is playing in my head. Lol. I do a pretty good job at getting enough exercise, but I’m lousy at drinking/eating less caffeine and sugar. I’m actually drinking a cup of coffee and eating a chocolate breakfast bar as I type this.
When the brain juices won’t flow, I take a walk or a run. It’s amazing how I can focus on anything after some exercise.
If I’ve been at the writing for awhile, I get up from the desk and do a task or a chore. I’ll get some laundry going or unload the dishwasher. We need to get up from the desk every so often for our circulation.
Love this series.
Great post – and 100% true! When I’m struggling with the words – Maggie, our lab, and I stroll the streets. Great inspiration, and great exercise.
I’m in on the “more protein” idea! Big steak for dinner, smaller steaks for appetizer and desert. And of course a side of bacon salad.
I know, it needs to be a better balanced nutritionally, but thinking about this menu makes me smile which has its own health benefits.
Enjoying this week’s blogs, but trying not to use them instead of working.
I’ve started writing using only my nose. One letter at a time while doing pushups. Took me 102 pushups to type this comment.
Exercise and eating better would be something for me to strive for. I’m not exactly leading by example at home. While I don’t eat a lot of chocolate these days, I can’t seem to go without my two cans of soda a day. I drink decaf tea, but if I go without caffeine for a day I have terrible headaches. I’m sure I could get by it if I held on for a week or so, but man, I love my soda. 🙂
Exercise is something I’ve never enjoyed. I’ve always been slender and active, so I never worried much about it; but now that I’m older and have had three kids, daily exercise is important. This week is Vacation Bible School and my muscles are aching from running around with all the kids. Adding a daily walk into my schedule is a must come September.
Ugh… exercise is always the first thing to go when I am busy. I know that I should keep up with it, but I always feel guilty–like I don’t have enough time in the day already. Not good!
Sarah Joy.
I’ve found drinking lots of water helps me. Not only does the water itself help, all those trips to the bathroom keep me from sitting still for too long.
But giving up M & M’s–I’m not sure that will work for me. I thought they were the “writer’s official candy.”
Friends have remarked that I am disciplined in my diet in the morning — and that my eating choices degrade as the day progresses.
I wonder if that’s why I’m more motivated to write in the morning.
When I’m consistent in exercising, I feel better and I’m not nearly as tired in the middle of the day. Some of my best scenes have come to me while on a walk or a jog.
I’m not a sweet lover, but giving up coffee with a big splash of flavored creamer would be tough.
Stress is certainly a factor with me. At times when I had to deal with things like a major move or the death of a loved one I couldn’t seem to get any writing or much of anything else done for a while. Maybe a shrinking hippocampus is the cause of writer’s block.
I find drinking a lot of water is helpful. Dehydration can cause absentmindedness, headaches, and drowsiness, so if I want to stay sharp and write well, I need to stay hydrated 🙂
This is a great reminder that we are made up of many ‘parts’ – physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional, and that imbalance or poor health in one area is sure to bleed over into others. On the other hand, being healthy in one area can inspire us to make better choices in others. Still…
Chocolate
Cold pizza and Dr. Pepper for breakfast. Yum!! 🙂
I came to exercise late after years of abusing my body with caffeine and junk food. I wish I’d discovered exercise earlier. I love to swim laps and I can usually plot out a chapter while I swim.
A person does not undertake complex tasks that require a lot of time in order to avoid emotional stress from uninteresting and time-consuming work. And he begins to realize it only when the fear of not doing the job outweighs the fear of an unsuccessful result. I had this, if you find it difficult to entrust the work to others, for example, write an essay, experts helped me a lot with this – essaysadvisor. Then I adjusted my regime and now things are going better.
The book quotes a study on rats that showed a 30 percent increase in blood flow to the Hippocampus after just three months of regular exercise