Walking Tall to Write Well

: Cover of Walking Tall

I recently wrote about the book Brain Rules, and its useful translation of the highly scientific language of neurology into more accessible insights into human behavior and thinking. One of the “brain rules” in the book that caught me completely by surprise is the fact that humans were designed to think best in motion.

I have always done my best thinking for writing and other creative projects in the shower, a result I attributed to the fact that showering distracts my conscious brain and allows my subconscious thoughts and ideas to rise to the top, so to speak.

I was wrong.

What I was experiencing was the benefits of a body in motion, and a brain designed to do its best work when that body is in motion.

The key here is that the motion is not supposed to be heavily intensive movement. Light walking, biking, jogging – things that do not require a tremendous amount of planning an adjustment to do – these motions allow muscle memory to guide the body through movements and stimulate the brain to function more actively.

And it works. It works very, very well, in fact. I have started incorporating scheduled walks into my writing binges, as I think of them, and the results have been fantastic. In the past, after about two straight hours of writing I would run out of steam. Now, with a walk every hour, I can go five or six hours straight writing and finish refreshed, not exhausted.

So whatever your work or writing project, try incorporating regular motion into your schedule. Don’t wait until you are fatigued or exhausted – make it preventative walking. And above all, carry some kind of recording device with you, because when the motion kicks into your brain, you need to have something to start recording those great ideas.