Autumn’s here, the nights are drawing in and it’s getting chillier. By now, the chances are that lovely, relaxed feeling brought back from any summer holidays has well and truly vanished!
Returning to our desks after a restorative break can be a shock to the system at the best of times, but even more so if we’ve plunged into a relentless schedule.
You’ll know only too well as a writer just how demanding the lifestyle is. You have to be disciplined, come up with fresh ideas under pressure, and fit in creative work alongside whatever else is going on in your life: family or friends, business, caring responsibilities and more.
You’re challenged to produce consistently, juggling conflicting demands while maintaining deep concentration.
It’s hard work!
With this in mind, let’s look at what you can do to care for yourself and maintain equilibrium during periods when you really need to write and are working hard.
Working from home
Many often write at home, which can mean being distracted by whatever might be going on there, or perhaps not noticing that you’re seguing into long hours without the kind of much-needed breaks that bring relief.
Naturally, you know only too well that writing means digging deep, tapping your source to deliver.
The thing is, writing isn’t a 24/7 activity – but thinking around it can be, as you percolate ideas and subconsciously work through any problems, blocks or issues you might be experiencing around your draft.
It’s a myth that the thinking comes before writing. It happens while you’re writing!
The important thing here is to try and avoid being ‘always on’. If you’re finding that you are and it’s starting to feel a bit much, that’s a good time to start consciously working those micro-breaks back into your writing periods.
Giving yourself enough space for rest and relaxation, time just to go and do something else, let your mind wander, are all key to going the distance. If you don’t and push yourself too hard, you can find yourself hitting the kind of wall where you really do need to step back and take a substantial breather.
This means putting mechanisms in place to avoid depleting yourself as you go, so you can stay fresh and fit for the long run: a holistic solution.
Staying in balance is key to remain productive and, indeed, happy and healthy in your writing.
Don’t tip the scales
What do you do to stay in balance? I go for walks, picking up my camera and taking off somewhere green.
My job as an editor requires consistent ability to show up and do deep work, day after day.
I’ve found over the years that having a place I can go to, where I know I will be able to unwind, really helps.
If I can, I get to the coast. There’s nothing like a wide stretch of beautiful beach to refresh the mind and restore a sense of well-being.
Is there a place that you can escape to for breaks, which you can make your safe haven? Somewhere that feeds and nourishes you?
It doesn’t have to be miles away or even cost a lot. It could be a local park or wood, a leisurely coffee stop to watch the world go by, even your own garden if you have one – just wherever you can go to breathe and feel your shoulders drop.
It’s been scientifically proven that taking a walk in green space boosts creativity!
Of course, this depends on whether you’re introverted or extraverted, and what works for you.
Does being outside, surrounded by nature or somewhere peaceful, do the business for you? Or do you crave people, lively surroundings and lots of chatter to feel re-energised?
Does immersing yourself in an activity that’s completely different from your normal routine help to take you out of that space, promote creative flow and engage your thoughts in relaxing ways?
Think about the places you love to be, and the activities or ways you can recharge your batteries, and put them in place. Carve out time in your schedule for them, and make it a non-negotiable.
How to get headspace
Some people prefer mental to physical space to revive themselves.
A period of quiet solitude somewhere undisturbed, just emptying your mind, can be enough. The benefits of meditation and mindfulness are now well known (although this doesn’t work for everyone and can even exacerbate or trigger pre-existing psychological conditions, so approach with care).
Another way to achieve this is to use guided relaxation. There are lots of resources online which you can explore to find the ones that work for you.
My own favourite is a guided relaxation that ends in a visualisation of a walk along a sundrenched beach. It’s an audio file on my phone, and I use it whenever I need to power down.
Guided relaxation does two things: it relaxes your body then eases your mind, placing you mentally in a place that’s both safe and restorative.
Again, if you’re the kind of person who needs to look out rather than inwards to rebalance yourself, that’s fine too – there’ll be plenty of other ways that you can achieve calm.
Just experiment – try different things and discover what floats your boat!
There are apps that simulate different environments to promote productivity and relaxation. Noisli is one, others are available. These can be useful for the room or location you’re writing in, and they’re excellent to help create certain moods.
Personally, I’m a firm believer in actualising your environment whenever possible, rather than experiencing it virtually. Being present somewhere physical can help to take us out of our head, especially if we’re the kind of person who spends a lot of time living in it – and intense periods of writing can force us to do that.
It literally positions us somewhere that we can absorb our surroundings and respond to them. Somewhere we can pause, reboot and come back raring to go again.
During periods of high mental activity, it’s important to identify what supports that and commit to practising it regularly, rather than giving up or frantically reaching for a self-medicating safety valve when overwhelm rears its head.
The great thing about all of this is that once you’ve found a place or method that helps, it’s yours to access anytime.
Understand natural cycles
Autumn is a time when we begin to hunker down. We crave comfort, warmth and cosiness.
Even though our days can be just as hectic, as we segue into winter our bodies are saying ‘no’. We’re winding down: our natural rhythms just aren’t the same.
Recognise that feeling of wanting to stay in bed when it’s cold and miserable outside? Prefer to stay in at night and curl up? That’s exactly what our agrarian ancestors did: by the time winter arrived, their work was done for the year.
All in all, autumn is an ideal season to really commit to quality self-care.
We’re living in a crazy world, with crazy demands on our psychological and physiological systems. We’re only human, and there’s only so much we can take.
Giving yourself permission not to be perfect is possibly the most freeing thing you can do for yourself. The next is to accept the need to switch off.
So, give yourself that gift. It will help your writing no end.
Be kind to yourself, and enjoy the serenity and productivity that comes with masterful self-care!
Lisa Cordaro Publishing Services 