Eye on the Prize: The Health and Maintenance of Writers

What You Need to Know to Stay You for as Long as You Are Able

Jan O’Hara

I know what you’re thinking: An essay on health in the middle of an inspirational and informational writing book? Isn’t that like biting into a Parisian-made madeleine cookie and discovering a filling of pureed Brussels sprouts? The above was my initial reaction when I was asked to use my background as a former family doctor to write this essay. But as soon as I wrapped my head around the concept, I recalled 5,110 excellent reasons to pair health and literary ambition. It turns out that if you consistently incorporate the following four habits into your life, you’ll gain an average of fourteen extra years. For those of you who complete a novel biannually, that’s an extra seven books you can add to your backlist. (Not to mention the additional books you will write with the productivity boost inherent in these measures.) Furthermore, the same health changes give you a good chance of avoiding disabilities that dog many Westerners: dementia, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, stroke, cancer, erectile dysfunction, and so on. It’s estimated that 65 percent of these conditions are preventable through lifestyle intervention. So invest in the four following habits, and harness your brain’s best efforts on creative pursuits rather than fight the fear and frustration of doctors’ visits.

ADD COLOR TO YOUR PLATE

Virtually every writer I know likes to believe she is an original thinker capable of thumbing her nose at society when the prevailing culture proves unworthy.

Virtually every writer I know associates a productive writing session with a specific snack.

How would you like to demonstrate your countercultural chops and gain an extra three years of life by simply adjusting what you consume? The habit is straightforward: Eat a minimum of five servings of minimally processed fruits and vegetables each day. (A serving size of green, leafy vegetables is one cup. All other fruit and vegetable servings, whether fresh, frozen, or cooked, are a half cup in size.)

Notice the words minimally processed in the preceding paragraph. They require emphasis because of the current situation in the Western world in which we are surrounded by food that has been ground, dehydrated, and doused in sugar, oil, and salt.

Is there any wonder we overeat? Is there any wonder we can fall into the pattern of writing while snacking on hyperpalatable foods?

Minimally processed fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, offer many health benefits. They are a symphony of vitamins and minerals we cannot hope to replicate through supplements or “nutritional” shakes. Thus they help address a common problem in the modern world in which we are overfed yet undernourished.

Also, they are comparatively calorie dilute. Human beings are designed to stay trim by eating the same weight of food each day rather than the same amount of calories. Unprocessed fruits and vegetables retain fiber and water. They displace less healthful, more calorie-dense foods. By incorporating a good quantity and variety of them into your diet, you will automatically maintain a slimmer waistline than you would otherwise.

To reach the minimum of five servings per day, the basic advice is to incorporate fruit and vegetables in each meal. For example, add a banana or berries to your breakfast oatmeal. Consume a cup of vegetable soup with your noontime sandwich. Add a salad and carrot sticks to your dinner entree.

But snacking writers have an extra weapon in their arsenal: automaticity.

If you’re going to nibble while you work, make it easy to do the right thing. Put a fruit plate on your kitchen counter or your desk. Wash vegetables, cut them into bite-size pieces, and then place them in a clear container at eye level in your fridge. Begin a work session with these foods within reach, and watch how mindless consumption finally works in your favor instead of against your waistline.

With a little advance planning, it can be easy to get in a minimum of five servings. Chances are, if you do, your daily word count will finally exceed your weight.

For references on healthful eating patterns and other lifestyle changes, go to writerunboxed.com/additional-material-on-the-health-and-maintenance-of-writers.

MOVE YOUR FEET, GROW YOUR BRAIN

We’ve only just met, but I’m willing to bet you are fond of your neurons and plan to keep them around and functioning at maximum capacity for as long as you live. In this regard, moderate exercise is your friend. Besides three extra years of life, moderate exercise (defined below) provides brain benefits essential to creative types.

Let’s begin with what movement does for mood: By replenishing your neurotransmitters and increasing endorphins, exercise helps you weather the discouragement of rejections and the stress of meeting deadlines.

It stimulates the growth and regeneration of neurons, especially those that preserve long-term memory.

Exercise has proven, positive effects on attentiveness. Newer studies show it enhances imagination. It also helps slow the cognitive decline associated with aging.

In other words, move more and you can extend your life, be more productive, master new writing-related skills faster, and stay at the top of your game longer than you would have without exercise.

To gain the benefits of exercise, it’s not necessary to run a marathon! Simply work a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate exercise into your weekly routine—ideally distributed over several days with each session lasting a good ten minutes. (Thirty minutes of exercise five times a week is a fantastic schedule to strive for.)

To determine whether an exercise counts as moderate, use the Rate of Perceived Exertion scale. A score of 0 indicates that you are doing nothing more strenuous than pecking at the keyboard. A 10 is full-on effort that cannot be maintained for more than sixty seconds. Aim for a level of 6 to 7. Generally speaking, that means you will be perspiring and have the capacity to talk in sentences, though singing proves impossible.

For extra brownie points—or should I say “strawberry” points?—incorporate twice-weekly resistance exercise into your regimen. This will help counter the bone-melting effects of prolonged sitting. Circuit training qualifies, so make a few of your sessions a series of squats, push-ups, lunges, chin-ups, and rows.

I’m a fan of activity trackers. They eliminate self-deception and subtly reinforce the movement habit. For most people, a basic step-counter is sufficient, but when sorting through the wide variety of trackers available, keep these factors in mind: cost, whether the device is water-resistant or waterproof, whether it can measure and record the type of exercise you do, and whether it requires frequent recharging or operates off long-lasting watch batteries. Avoid simple clip-on trackers, as they’re easily lost. And unless the device uses a chest strap, don’t bother with one that includes a heart rate monitor; at this time, they aren’t sufficiently reliable. Lastly, consider a tracker that prompts you to move every waking hour. Any amount of exercise is beneficial, and the 150 minutes I mentioned before is the minimum recommendation.

If you decide to take up the exercise mantle, know that you’ll be in good writerly company. Charles Dickens was known to walk up to twenty miles a day. Multipublished author Susan Shapiro conducts office hours while speed walking with her writing students. Haruki Murakami, author of 1Q84, runs ten miles a day when he’s not preparing for triathlons.

Common sense tells us that our bodies fare better if moved on a regular basis. Science tells us that exercise helps build and preserve new circuitry in the brain. If you want to master the art of dialogue or scene transitions, go for a brisk walk between writing sessions.

DELETE THE DAIQUIRIS

I can already hear the admonitions about the threatening title of this section. “Back off, lady. Booze helps me relax when I write. And what about the French paradox? You’re the one talking about living longer. Doesn’t alcohol protect you from heart disease and the ravaging effects of a high-cholesterol diet?”

Sadly, after further investigation, the French paradox transforms into the French mirage.

The French appear to escape ischemic heart disease for two reasons: inaccurate medical coding at autopsies, in which heart disease deaths are attributed to other causes, and the French diet, which isn’t uniform. In fact, in substantial portions of France, the diet is a far cry from the fat- and cholesterol-laden cuisine of the capital. When health statistics take regional differences into consideration, it becomes clear that success in escaping heart disease occurs despite alcohol rather than because of it.

Unlike carbohydrates and protein, which contain four calories per gram, alcohol contains seven calories per gram. Our bodies easily convert it to fat, putting us at increased risk for obesity and all its associated illnesses.

Alcohol consumption is a risk factor for a huge number of cancers, including leukemia and malignancies of the head and neck, lung, cervix, bladder, esophagus, pancreas, stomach, and colon, to name a few.

As little as one ounce of alcohol per day has been found to raise blood pressure by 10 mmHg (the amount by which most medications can lower blood pressure.)

Because of alcohol’s deleterious effects, by abstaining altogether you can earn an average of three to four additional years of life. But if that is too much to ask, women should limit their intake to no more than four drinks per week, and men should imbibe no more than seven per week. On any given day, limit yourself to a two-drink maximum.

VAPORIZE THE SMOKES

Conjure an image of the quintessential writing figure. Did any part of that picture include lazy smoke rings and cigarettes? I wouldn’t be surprised; much of the romanticism and mystique concerning writers involves a hard-living lifestyle.

Here’s the reality, gleaned from a few moments of research: Rod Serling, writer and director of The Twilight Zone, smoked four packs a day, and he was dead at fifty-one of heart disease. T.S. Eliot, author and poet, died at seventy-six with emphysema. Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond books, was dead at fifty-six from a heart attack. Dashiell Hammett, author of such classics as The Maltese Falcon, died of lung cancer at sixty-seven. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, died of a heart attack at forty-four.

When I was a family doctor conducting yearly checkups, I considered it a minimum standard of care to tell smokers that the best thing they could do for their health, bar none, was to quit smoking. An astonishing number of patients informed me that I was the first doctor to make this declaration. In an effort to make up for the system’s gross deficiencies, allow me make an unequivocal recommendation: If you smoke, quit. If you can’t quit, please cut down.

You’ve heard of the robber-nun metaphor when it comes to guarding the till? (I owe this mode of explanation to Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.) If you are a shopkeeper experiencing employee-generated theft, which would be the wiser strategy, assuming people run true to stereotype: Hire more nuns, or fire the robbers?

Smoking is an indisputable health thief. Freeing your body from its influence will add an average of four to five years of life, not to mention help you avoid an astonishing number of long-term illnesses. (While you are at it, avoid secondhand and thirdhand smoke.)

Now, much like the idea that all you need to do to complete a publishable novel is insert butt in chair and write, there is a vast distance between understanding the dangers of smoking and quitting. The average smoker who quits permanently manages to do so on his twelfth attempt, meaning that some succeed on their first try, others on their hundredth. If you’re edging toward the higher end of the spectrum, that’s okay. With each successive effort you will have learned more about your strengths and vulnerabilities, and what you require to find success as a nonsmoker.

The good news is, the moment you stop reinjuring yourself with a toxic substance, your body will throw all it has into its best healing effort.

How should one quit smoking? Statistically speaking, the highest success rates belong to those who’ve worked through a behavioral program prior to making any changes. This allows you to rehearse what you’ll do after meals, how to handle empty hands and mouth, and so on. Talk to your family doctor or general internist. Besides pointing you to local smoking cessation programs, they can explain medical options to deal with nicotine withdrawal, some of which may be covered by your employer or insurance.

Writers are gifted with two known superpowers: imagination and persuasion. Use these talents to pull off an inside job. Imagine yourself free of tobacco, and persuade yourself to try and try again until you succeed. Unbridled health is the source of true sexiness.

CREATE AN EXCEPTIONAL BRAIN HOUSED IN AN EXCEPTIONAL BODY

I doubt any of the previous advice came as a great surprise to you. What might astonish you is how rare it is for Westerners to observe all four habits consistently yet how often we persuade ourselves our health isn’t at risk. In one study of 42,847 men, only 4 percent accomplished the recommendations in this essay and maintained a body mass index (BMI) of 25 percent or less. That’s one in twenty-five people.

Can writers fare any better given the sedentary nature of our calling? Why not?

Writers are detail oriented. We learn to persist on our chosen path despite setbacks and chronic discouragement. Our work requires us to observe human nature and obtain self-understanding.

In other words, the very attributes that encourage you to park your posterior in a chair are the qualities that will enable you to rise from it, eat your fruits and vegetables, and minimize your exposure to two known health robbers.