Diet, exercise, and writing

lizshine74by lizshine74

In On writing.

The idea that food and activity level effect our writing is not new. I recently read Julia Cameron’s The Writing Diet, which addresses how to eat well and feed our cravings with words, not foods that trigger binging, lethargy, and self-doubt. Joyce Carol Oates, in The Faith of A Writer wrote at some length about the impressive history of writers who find inspiration when on long reflective walks or heart-stirring runs.
My experience has crystallized this idea into what looks to me now like obvious truth. I am most inspired and productive when I adhere to the aryuvedic principles that I’ve found work for me, when my yoga practice is regular and engaged, and when I’m walking or running most days.
Food can be an immense comfort for a stuck writer, a source of celebration for a job well done. We crave the same richness in our diet that we crave in our words. We want the thing that appeals to the senses to such a degree that it engages us entirely.
The trouble is, traditional “rich” foods have a short lasting satisfaction, make us too tired to keep writing and are usually not so good for our overall health. This is where the ayurvedic principles of diversity and intention come in.
Eating foods that span the range of the six qualities and six tastes of food and that are chosen for your personal energy needs leads to long lasting satisfaction and greater creative stamina. This flies in the face of the idea that a person should avoid certain “trigger foods” and argues that a craving for chips or chocolate or ice cream is indicative of a greater sensory deprivation that can be addressed by adding spices to your diet and eating so called trigger foods in small, wisely chosen amounts daily, such as a square of dark chocolate, a couple of slices of candied ginger, and the right amounts of good fats throughout the day. These cravings are also indicative of a larger kind of deprivation in which in the course of our busy lives, we often eat food that is bland and nutrient-deficient, which will eventually make us ravenous even when it’s not calories that we lack.
Poor personal food choices and lack of exercise scatter and stall my creative energies more than anything else. Building good habits around this and forgiving my shortcomings in this is something that I’ve been actively working on for some years now. The thing I find most difficult is not multi-tasking while eating. I know that the experience of the food, the texture, the flavor, and all the subtly is part of the nourishment we crave. Yet, I have trouble slowing down to do just this one thing.
I’ll keep refining these habits for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that when I eat better and exercise, I write more and more often. I’ll begin by forcing myself to sit down at the table to eat dinner tonight and then again breakfast tomorrow morning, which I usually eat while putting on my shoes for work. ☺

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.