Hey everyone! Welcome back to another week and another post! I hope that as we begin with our first real informative self-care post it can really help writers out there or writer’s friends and families to help take better care of themselves. So, without further ado…
Care for Writers: Health Part 1
The first part of the definition of care that I wrote in the previous post was “provision of what is necessary for health”. Health is the first category we are going to discuss for self-care. There are two different parts of health. There is physical health and well-being such as the typical things you probably learned about in school or from home such as eating healthily, exercising, or anything else in that form. The second part of health is emotional, mental, and social health which I usually consider altogether as one type of health.
In this post we are going to discuss just the first aspect of physical health and then in next week’s post we will talk more about social, emotional, and mental health and how to care for yourself a little bit in that front. So, let’s start into physical health.
Eating
Not every writer has a difficult time with all of their physical health, but every writer that I have met has had a certain aspect of physical health that they could work better at such as eating habits, exercise habits, sleep habits, or muscle tension issues. Focusing on any one of these aspects and seeking to improve it could be considered self-care.
Eating is a difficult thing to remember to do for some writers or they do eat but just whatever they can find in the cupboard because they are busy, or they have too many great big ideas to sit down and do anything as long and boring as cooking and then eating. Some writers find cooking and then taking a break to eat one of the best parts of their day but for those who find these tasks difficult try to find things you can do while eating to help you feel like it isn’t a waste of time.
For me personally, whenever I’m feeling like eating will be annoying or take too long or I just don’t want to cook. I think of it as a writing brainstorming activity. I turn on whatever playlist I have made for my most recent writing adventure, or I play whatever book inspired my book, and I just start thinking. I use voice to text type apps and assistants to take down ideas I come up with for my book while I cook. In this way I don’t really feel like I’m not being productive, but I also get a bit of a break from the difficult part of writing – writing – and instead get to enjoy my favorite part – imagining.
Exercise
Exercise is the area of physical health most of my writing friends struggle with the most. I also severely struggle with exercise. I’ve discovered however that the biggest problem my writing friends, and myself, seem to have is considering exercise as only a few things such as going to gym, running, or weightlifting. None of those things seem to appeal to a large majority of writers I know. The best way to overcome this and begin exercising is to think of a different form of exercise that you would prefer.
I like walking and cycling. Walks are a good form of exercise if you can take a long enough one for it to help with your health. In the winter I typically use walking as my exercise form because I love cold weather and walking in the snow is super fun and is good exercise. I use this time sometimes to think through plot holes and try to fix them – taking time to reflect on my book and enjoy myself in the snow. In the spring, summer, and fall, I like to go cycling. It’s a much faster activity than walking and is much more exhilarating without exhausting myself or causing strained or sore muscles like I would get if I was weightlifting.
Every writer just needs to find a different form of exercise that they enjoy. Some of my friends like Tennis and might go to a local tennis court and a hit a ball against a back wall to practice tennis swings, some like basketball and might shoot some hoops for 20 minutes. Anything that you might enjoy that gets you moving would work to care for your physical health.
Sleep and Muscle Tension
The last thing I want to point out in regard to physical health care is sleep and muscle tension. I’ve found with many of my writing friends that sleep and muscle tension go hand in hand as related issues when it comes to physical health. Bad sleep habits can lead to muscle tension which can lead to increased grumpiness, neck pain, back pain, and other related issues.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was to make sure you go to bed at around the same time every night. If you go to bed at the same time every night your body will begin to get tired at that time every night. So, if you go to bed at 1am every night it will be a struggle when you want to go to bed at 11pm. A few years ago, I started training myself to lay in bed by 10pm, read a book for 30 minutes, and then put it away and lay still until I fell asleep. When I first started it didn’t work well but after a few weeks I started to feel tired around 9:30ish. And now I can get into bed around 10pm and just read a little before I feel so tired, and I can’t read anymore.
Now, because I have a healthy sleep habit, I feel like I can get more done during the day combined with my eating and exercise habits (I’m still working on the exercise ones) I feel energized and able to not only do my normal stuff like cooking and working but also have enough time and energy to do writing in the evenings before bed.
Physical health is a super important part of caring for yourself or helping to care for writers around you. I always appreciate the people such as my friends and family who sometimes notice I’m not feeling like myself and immediately ask after things such as muscle tension and my eating. Sometimes a friend or family member asking me if I’d eaten was all I needed to realize I hadn’t eaten anything that day and that I should, to have the energy I needed.
That’s all I have for this week, and I hope this week’s article was helpful and gave you some ideas to improve on your own physical health and well-being. Next week, as I mentioned before, I’ll write about the emotional, social, and mental aspects of health. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the links below. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!