The Silent Creativity Killer, And How To Avoid It

It’s August and for many people reading this post, that means it’s hot.

While I can hear friends and family in my birth country (Australia) scoffing at the idea that 30 degrees Celsius is hot, heat is a subjective experience. I used to think 40 degrees was what hot really meant, but in Canada, 30 degrees feels like the same thing because the houses and lifestyle just aren’t set up to cope with “real” heat.

So wherever you are, the hot, lagging days of late summer can really suck the energy out of you. They can also kill your creativity simply by dropping your hydration level by a mere cupful or two.

Yep, not drinking enough water can directly affect the quality of your writing.

There’s a number of reports around the web pointing to a drop in hydration levels creating concentration problems, incluing the What is Elightenment magazine, that states:

“but even short periods of fluid restriction, leading to a loss of body mass of 1-2%, lead to reductions in the subjective perception of alertness and ability to concentrate and to increases in self-reported tiredness and headache.”

Nature said:

“There are undoubtedly some negative subjective symptoms associated with even modest levels of dehydration. Self-ratings of alertness and ability to concentrate decline progressively when fluid intake is restricted to induce body mass deficits of even as little as 1-2%. At the same time, ratings of tiredness and headache increase. There are also some indications in the published literature that cognitive function, as assessed by decision making and reaction time tests, is also impaired at relatively low levels of dehydration (Gopinathan et al, 1988). This may be important when decisions have to be made or where judgement and skill are involved; driving a motor car is a good example of such a task.

The emphasis is mine. If lack of water can screw up your driving abilities, what is it going to do to your writing skills?

Do you have problems writing during the summer? Do you yearn to be outside relaxing when you’re at the keyboard? Have you noticed over the years that your productivity always drop off in summer?

It’s possible that you’re simply dehydrated. Try making sure you take in enough water over the next few weeks, and see if there’s a difference in your output, in either quality or quanitity…or both.

Here’s some painless ways to incorporate more water into your day.

Crystal sachets and water

500ml bottles of water are very convenient to carry around, and if you can’t stand the taste of water, try mixing in some sugar-free drink crystals.

Try to avoid the crystals that use aspartame. There are flaming wars over whether aspartame is the toxin some people claim it to be, but I know from personal experience that it causes seizures in suspectible people. If it can affect the brain enough to create seizures in some people, what is it doing to the brain of less suspectible people, including writers? On general principles, avoid aspartame (you’ll have to detox if you’ve been using it a while).

You can get drink crystals that use the less volatile Splenda (sucralose), and if you need the flavour hit to get the water down, use them liberally.

But if you can down your water without flavour, you’ll be better off in the long run.

Carry a water bottle with you

It no longer looks odd to tote your water with you, these days….but get rid of the plastic bottle and pick up one of the stainless steel water bottles, to avoid the carcinogens that leech out of old plastic.

If you have your water always with you, sipping constantly becomes a habit that is hard to break…and might even be a useful substitute for something to do with your hands if you’re trying to quit smoking.

At the first sign of thirst, drink a big glass of water, or more.

By the time you feel thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. As soon as you feel any type of thirst, deliberately knock back a big glass of water. Re-fill it instantly, and take the refill with you to drink in smaller sips. Do this a few times a day when thirst registers, and you’ll be consuming a good eight glasses a day without even trying.

Eat more fruit and veggies.

Increase your intake of fruits and raw veggies. Quite apart from the huge energy boost the live enzymes will give you, the fruits and veggies provide masses of fresh, pure water to your system. There’s nothing nicer than a fresh, cool fruit salad on a hot day, either.

Connect drinking water with another habit

If you make the drinking of water a co-habit with another already established pattern, then you don’t have to think about drinking enough.

For example, if you pass a water cooler every time you go to the washroom at work, always stop for a mouthful or two on the way there or back, every time.

Make drinking a tall glass of water the first thing you do each morning as soon as you get out of bed. You can leave the glass on your bedside table, so that reaching for it becomes automatic.

Do you have any other daily habits that are already well set? Can you incorporate drinking water as part of them?

Room temperature water is easier to guzzle than icy water.

Drink iced water too fast, and you’ll get an icecream headache. If you like drinking big glassfuls all at once, take your water at room temperature. It goes down easier.

Purely for writers: Drink water to kick start the creative juices when you pause.

This is one habit only writers can develop. Alison Kelly, an Australian romance author, once told me that her consumption of cigarettes always increased when she was actively writing a book. She didn’t actually smoke much more than usual, but whenever she paused for thought, while writing, she would light a cigarette. Then, when the next idea occurred to her, she’d put down the cigarette and start writing, and the cigarette would burn itself out, unused.

You could use the same idea, but with a water bottle. Whenever you pause for thought, drink from the bottle.

One of the physical actions of lighting a cigarette is the long, deep inhale to draw on the cigarette. While you’re pulling in a carload of toxins with that breath, the breath itself is deep and controlled, which actually has a relaxing effect. Try it yourself, right now. Go on. Take a few deep, slow controlled breaths, that make your stomach expand.

This controlled breathing floods your body with endorphins – the natural happy pills. It clears your mind and relaxes you. It’s partially this effect that makes cigarette smoking so damned addicting. I used to smoke two packs a day, until I figured out this trick of controlled breathing to get the same “aaaaaahhhhh…..” sensation I used to get from lighting up.

A flood of endorphins and a relaxed state are prime conditions for producing good writing, so if you draw on the straw of your water bottle every time you pause for thought, you’ll be instantly helping yourself write better.

First appeared on Anchored Authors on August 22, 2008

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