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There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

It’s definitely a derogatory slur to call someone a fathead. Let me clarify. I’m not calling you a fathead. I’m simply bringing a scientific fact to your attention: excess abdominal fat does more damage than forcing you to let out your belt another notch. Besides being dead weight it releases toxic chemicals and inflammatory molecules that can literally seep into your brain and contribute to sluggishness when you’re trying to think. And excess body weight in middle age adults has been found by a Kaiser Permanente study to increase your chances of developing dementia as you age. Yikes. Plenty of reason to reduce body fat by choosing healthier, brain-friendly food options before the goo gets trapped in your gray matter.

In a nutshell, the study discovered patients in their seventies who did not have a weight problem in their forties were less likely to have developed dementia.

“People who were obese in mid-life were 74 percent more likely to have dementia, while overweight people were 35 percent more likely to have dementia, compared to those with normal weight, said lead investigator Rachel A. Whitmer, PhD, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California.”

http://www.dor.kaiser.org/external/news/press_releases/Obesity_in_Middle_Age_Increase_Risk_of_Dementia_Later_in_Life/

Don’t think of healthy food options as cutting out your favorite foods. Think of it as replacing something high in fat that will more than likely come back to bite you later on in life only you won’t remember eating the fat or anything else if the menu continues to include high fat foods over low fat. Here are some suggestions.

In place of:                                                                    Eat instead:

corn chips                                                                     non-wheat crackers

cookies                                                                           oat granola bar

red meat burger                                                         turkey burger

Do a little bit of research. Read food labels and try to cut down on the fat intake and you’ll remember doing it later in life!

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing  www.whodareswinspublishing.com

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

One of the best stories for the first week of 2011 was about a homeless man named Ted Williams who was taped by a Columbus Dispatch photojournalist while panhandling at a corner in the heart of Ohio.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/01/05/ted-williams-homeless-radio-announcer-becomes-viral-video-star/

It’s pretty amazing and heartening at the same time to witness what happened to Mr. Williams in a few short hours after his video cameo went viral on YouTube (illegally, I might add, see Columbus Dispatch explanation.) It’s an interesting exercise in copyright to read what the newspaper did to protect their video.

http://blog.dispatch.com/blog-36/

Job offers galore, a tearful reunion with the mother he hasn’t see in ten years of homelessness and drug abuse, a shave and a haircut, and spots on the top news shows thrust Mr. Williams into the cultural consciousness of America and he will never be the same again…we hope. Hopefully, whatever contributed to his situation will not happen again. We all know how special and rare a second chance is. I’m sending him strong thoughts for success and healing. But what about the person who brought the plight of Mr. Williams to our attention?

Doral Chenoweth III is a photojournalist for the newspaper but according to his website, he is a world traveller whose special gift in my opinion, is seeing, really seeing the depths of the truth and the not-so-true that live within us all. Just looking at the pictures on his website is inspiring.

http://doralchenoweth.com/

According to his website, Mr. Chenoweth is a family man, an adjunct college instructor, a newspaper photographer, and a humanitarian. But it’s what he instinctively “sees” in his fellow man that interests me and the fact that he writes his stories with photos fascinates me, too. He’s a writer who uses pictures instead of words to tell his story. That’s called a photojournalist. But he must have a gift for recognizing what’s special while looking through a camera lens. What did Mr. Chenoweth see in Mr. Williams that compelled him to roll down his car window and make a video that changed William’s life? Does Mr. Chenoweth see a hopeful world and a year of goodness and compassion ahead for us in the simple story of a homeless man with a “God given gift?” Looking at his other photos, it’s obvious he sees goodness in lots of faces and places. Is it just a matter for the rest of us of stopping and taking the time to really “see” what’s inside a person? Is the photography asking us not to jump to conclusions?

If you ask me, it’s what writers have done for centuries. The way they view something and the way they then explain it to the rest of us is a special ability. Writing (and photos) change lives. I bow humbly to both men.

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing www.whodareswinspublishing.com

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Even if it’s producing results, exercise can be boring. When you think exercise is boring it’s time for a change. Time to shake up the workouts or possibly time to get started with a fitness plan you can manage that will reap solid benefits.

Think of “boring” as a symptom of repetitive stress syndrome. Exercise bores you because your muscles are no longer responding to the actions because you do the same treadmill, the same bike, or the same yoga practice over and over again. You have created “muscle memory,” which is good, but the average person’s muscles respond better to a variety of workouts. Muscle memory is important for dancers and athletes who have to perform consistenly under stress. Games and performances are stressful and these folks rely on muscle memory to carry them through, but the same exercise routine day after day for the average person causes muscle fatigue because after a certain point muscles stop improving they tire and do not improve. This is the feeling that leads someone to think, “This is boring.”

Variety is the secret. Create a fitness program that includes a number of varied options. Exercise reaps more benefits faster and maintains results longer if the body and the brain are regularly challenged by variety. Mix it up. Yoga, treadmill, aerobic dance, walking, martial arts, kickboxing, recumbent bike, and weights can make for an interesting week of productive exercise. And change the locations. That helps also.

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing www.whodareswinspublishing.com

There are  five primary areas of practice to the the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

In the exploding world of brain research, it’s being proven that play is healthy for your brain. Most people love to play games. Growing up my house was filled with games and gamers, although we didn’t call ourselves gamers back then. We played card games, board games, music and dance games, and learning games in my house almost every day. My mother was a dance teacher and my father played alot of musical instruments so our house was pretty busy with some kind of creative endeavor all of the time.

We not only learned skills and strategy, we learned competiveness. And we learned to think like someone else. If we could figure out how someone at the game table was thinking, it was possible to win the game by thinking like them but ahead of their thoughts. That’s strategy training.

Games were really big and the holidays were really special because it meant we didn’t have to stop playing a particular game to go back to school. My favorite Christmas was at age seven when I received Monopoly as a gift and my dad, sister, and I played the game for four days without stopping until one of us won. I couldn’t wait for the weekends as a child because it meant extra time to play games.

What good is playing a game? Were you “taught” that games are a waste of time? Too bad, because playing games creates new brain cells and new brain cells mean better quality of life because new brain cells help use function and cope longer and better. Work a crossword puzzle, play a video game, or play cards with family friends. It is proven that playing games challenges your brain and increases its ability to function.

The practice of using your brain to think through a game’s strategy and then implement your plan keeps things like memory and focus in tact. Playing a variety of games such as working puzzles and playing board games encourages your brain to build new brain cells in response to the mental challenges. These cells prosper when challenged continually. Playing games helps your memory to function better just because you practice using your memory when playing games.

Don’t play games with other people’s heads. Engage in gaming to strengthen and lengthen your own brain’s capabilities. As my college teachers used to say, “Play is learning.” Cool.

(Fall Fairy by K. Held)

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing  www.whodareswinspublishing.com

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Relax? What does that really mean? It can mean taking a moment in the face of stress and remembering how inconsequential the problem is. But is that practical? What if the problem is a really big issue like something burning? Thankfully, the natural “fight or flight” response will kick in and you can probably put the fire out but what about responding to the everyday stresses we encounter all the time? It all matters a little bit but how we react to the situation is the real cause of most of our stress. It’s a matter of choice.

I believe that what causes the most stress for people are expectations. The fear of not living up to the hype causes us to tense up and that tension results in poo-poo thinking and the release of stress hormones that don’t dribble out later. They hang around and sludge up the works making blood sticky, muscles achy, and thinking unclear.

What helps? Breathing helps. Meditation helps. Exercise helps. Loving helps. Heck, hugging helps reduce the stress response and makes us think maybe we can cope with all this crap after all. Everything happens for a reason, and you are here now at this moment for a reason living life the way you are. You may not know it, but I think the human experience is only about finding that reason for living and pursuing it with everything you’ve got body and soul.

Find your reason for living by paying attention to the little things and to how fast time flys when you’re engaged in a particular activity. When do you lose all track of time? When do you feel refreshed no matter how intense the activity? When is your thinking focused on one thing and nothing else can get in until you let it? These are clues to finding your reason for being here, for contributing to the existential drama that causes us so much stress because we don’t know for sure what our true purpose in life is supposed to be.

Be still, breathe, and listen and the answer will overpower the stress.

(Photo by J. Purkey, 2003)

Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity

Who Dares Wins Publishing  www.whodareswinspublishing.com

I’ve been told that a healthy writer is an oxymoron. The nature of the business (sitting for long hours, working odd hours, seclusion, etc.) create an unhealthiness that in some ways contributes to the work. HUH? I even have a friend that when she told her mother she wanted to be a writer, her mother said, “You’ll have to learn how to drink.” My friend has loved dark rum ever since but it doesn’t contribute anything substantial to her successful career.

Our awareness as writers depends on our state of health physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Our choices have a profound effect on the condition of these factors. Studies abound on the mind-body connection proving that each affects the other. An appreciation of what role the spirit plays in being human is expanding daily as well. Overall, it is wise to make decisions that lead to a healthy state of being supportive to your creative life.

WRITER WELLNESS is a plan that employs choices you can make to improve yourself by writing in a journal, exercising, learning to relax and meditate, making sound nutritional decisions, and by engaging in some type of creative play on a regular basis.

Here is one reason journaling is useful to writers.

Journaling: Some people hate it. Some people are addicted. But a journal writing habit is nothing but good for a writer. Contrary to what you’ve heard, it isn’t a time waster. “If I’m going to be writing, I want it to be toward my daily word count.” Well, writing in a journal can contribute to your daily word count if you learn to harvest the ideas from your journal that are worth employing in your writing. When the well seems dry and you’re crawling toward your word count, turn to your journal for ideas from past entries. If you keep a journal of thoughts, pictures, events, etc., I guarantee there is no such thing as writer’s block because you have a journal full of ready-made ideas to jump start your thinking when you run into a sour place in the novel writing. But there has to be a journal to refer to and you need to set aside time on a consistent basis to track your life for ideas and for cleansing. Journaling is a cleansing process that leaves you feeling crisp and excited about your work-in-process. No such thing as writer’s block when you have journals full of history to refer to when you’re stuck.

Writer Wellness is a lifestyle, a committment just like your writing. Check back and we’ll explore fitness, meditation, nutrition, and creative play and how those ideas make you a better writer.

Be well, write well,

Joy

Coming soon! Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity, second edition from Who Dares Wins Publishing

www.whodareswinspublishing.com