Writing a Book In Sync With Circadian Rhythms
How Understanding the Body Clock Helps to Get a Novel Published
Nov 2, 2009
Most writers concede that they have a preferred time of day to sit down at the computer and write. Some get up before dawn, happily brewing a cup of coffee and attacking the keyboard with vigour. Others can barely pry their eyelids apart until after eight in the morning, but will happily type for hours late at night. A few hardy souls even work a night shift: they go to bed at first light, then sleep until after midday.
Popular children's author Bren McDibble says: "I've heard about people who write whole novels by going to work two hours early every day and working at their desk, but I'm not a morning person. My brain runs in zombie-stagger-mode until at least midday, which is fine for office work, but not good for creativity. 10 pm until midnight is when I am most productive. It's as if there is freedom in the time between the end of one day and the start of another."
Given that there is such a wide range of 'peak productivity times', how can authors work around the many commitments in their lives to work with their own body rhythms?
First, Learn About Circadian Rhythms
Briefly, circadian rhythms are cyclic patterns of mental and physical behaviour demonstrated by most life on Earth, including plant life and bacteria as well as humans. Circadian rhythms pretty much follow a 24-hour cycle. The study of these rhythms and the 'body clocks' that most life forms have is known as chronobiology.
Which is all very well... but how does this all affect your average writer? By studying circadian rhythms, writers can understand why they are more productive (that is, alert) at certain times of day, and why they need to work with, rather than against, these rhythms. Quite often, problems such as writer's block can be directly attributed to simply trying to work at the wrong time of day for the author's body clock.
According to chronobiologists, around one in every ten people is a 'lark', or a morning person. Two out of ten are 'owls', or night people. The rest fall somewhere in between, but usually tend to slide one way or the other. Michael Smolensky, a chronobiologist who co-authored a book called The Body Clock Guide to Better Health, has a quaint way of explaining the difficulties of working against an individual body clock: "Doing anything early in the morning for an owl, or late at night for a lark, is like squeezing into 32-inch-waist pants when you're a 36-incher."
So what can writers do to work with their body rhythms? Number one tip is, of course, to choose the right time of day to work with your circadian rhythms. If that's not possible (for whatever reason - work, family, other commitments) then try these 'quick fixes':
Writing a Book: An Approach for Larks Who Have to Write at Night
- Throw light on the subject. Dim lighting will only encourage eyelids to droop. If working at night is the way it has to be, then try bright fluorescent lights in the work area.
- Caffeine is the fall-back – at least for a couple of hours. The downside is that the initial jolt will be followed by a slump later... but if the working-on-the-novel period is only a two-hour window at night, then most writers can live with that. Tea is a milder form of caffeine intake.
- Take a siesta mid-afternoon. (Of course, this isn't an option for the nine-to-five crew who work outside the home, unless they work in a forward-thinking business with state-of-the-art sleep pods.)
Writing a Book: An Approach for Owls Who Have to Write During the Day
- Number one tip: don't skip breakfast! Owls are often too sleepy to bother doing anything but drag themselves to the computer with one hand wrapped around a cup of coffee, but a healthy breakfast will do more to stoke the fires than anything else.
- It's well-known that light and exercise work together to wake up the body. Sunshine is best, but for reluctant owls who are squeezing in a writing session at first light, at least take a turn around the block first.
Quick fixes for All Writers: Larks or Owls
- Do any kind of exercise. Both larks and owls will be sluggish at the wrong time of day, and the first ten minutes of an exercise session will probably seem like torture. Persevere: a cardio session will get you going mentally as well as physically. Take care though – skipping the warm-up session isn't a good idea: the body's flexibility and temperature are both low in non-peak periods.
- Get up and move around regularly to keep giving the body mini wake-up jolts. A quick trip to the kitchen to get a glass of water or two minutes of stretches can keep struggling writers for another short session.
Nothing can replace working at the best time of day to suit a writer's natural circadian rhythm. If that's not possible, be smart: put a few simple measures in place around it. It's worth putting in whatever effort is necessary to finish writing a book and get published!
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