Yoga For Writers

I've written before about the importance of exercise for writers, especially how moving around can help the creative process. (Some of my favorite story ideas have come to me while running.) But what about the physicality of being a writer? Those hours spent sitting down, barely moving, hunched over a keyboard, elbows bent, wrists probably weak and sore?

To help with the painful upper back, lower back, achey wrists, and sore elbows, I turn to yoga. Here are some specific tips and videos I use to ease the ouchies caused by poor posture over my laptop at the kitchen table, or sitting on the couch, for hours at a time. I'm neither a doctor nor a physical therapist, so follow my advice with deference to your own body's needs and limitations. I've been doing yoga for a long time, and though I lack the strength for things like crow pose or headstand, I have a lot of natural stretchiness that helps me bend and twist into things like Eagle and Child's Pose.

Most of these videos are from a YouTube series called Yoga With Adrienne. After trying out a lot of different free, online yoga videos -- and with a good foundation from years and years of classes -- I found her videos to be my favorite. She's straightforward with her sequences, but friendly. She addresses the health problems with compassion and understanding. She's fun but not overly silly. Her videos are short and to-the-point without being brusque or confusing. I find them useful for both beginners and more advanced students.

That said...


Abs
Thanks to genetics, I've had a bad lower back since I was 19 years old. My mother has the exact same problem in the exact same spot that manifested at the exact same age; same with her mother. My second child, the 2 1/2-year old Juban Princeling, was so big when I was pregnant with him that he tore open my abdominal muscles and pulled on my lower back in an extremely painful way for the better part of nine months. The result was a chain reaction of problems I'm still coping with today: weak abdominal muscles, for which my lower back overcompensates to keep me upright, resulting in tight, painful hip flexors.

The bottom line: Working on your abdominal muscles helps strengthen your core and improve your overall posture. When your tummy is working to keep your back straight, your back has less work to do. And when it comes to toning abs, nothing is better than Pilates. I've used this exact video for years. It's only 10 minutes long, you can do it every day, and it tones your entire core.

Lower Back
Still, no matter how much I try to rebuild my abdominal muscles, I will have lower back problems for the rest of my life. This yoga video has been excellent in helping relieve even my worst lower back pain, and it's only 15 minutes long.

Upper Back and Shoulders
In recent months I've developed a lot of upper back pain as well: hot soreness right between my shoulder blades, at about the bra line. This video, another from Yoga With Adrienne, has done wonders for that. It's 12 minutes long.

A great yoga pose for the upper back and shoulders, which you can do on its own, is Eagle arms. The legs of Eagle pose (garudasana) can be tricky if you are a complete beginner, but the arms are fairly straightforward and a great way to open up and stretch the muscles in your shoulders and upper back. Follow this link for step-by-step instructions.


Wrist-Friendly Yoga
I know a lot of writers with such bad wrist problems -- including carpal tunnel -- that they can't do some of the most basic of yoga poses, like Downward Dog. This video from Yoga Journal presents a 17-minute flowing sequence that avoids putting pressure on wrists and hands.

If, like me, you neglect your wrists on a regular basis and then once in a while go, "Ow, my wrists hurt!" then this short, 3-minute, 40-second sequence is for you. A friend of mine who teaches yoga showed me some of the wrist stretches featured in this video and I'm not kidding when I say they changed my life. I've been typing for a long, long time, and for the past six years I've also been pushing a stroller uphill, not keeping my wrists straight and worrying more about protecting my lower back than proper arm and wrist alignment. So my poor wrists suffer. They suffer because their aches and pains usually pale in comparison to the agony in my lower back and hips. This video, though, is quick, and a good reminder to stretch out those sad, attention-starved joints between my arms and hands.

This is also a great article on specific yoga if you have carpal-tunnel syndrome.

Namaste, my friends.


What do you do to recover from the aches and pains of bending over a keyboard all the time?

Exercise for Writers

I like to exercise.

There, I said it.

In addition to all the usual reasons why it's important to get a good workout in every now and then -- heart health, quality of life, etc. -- I think there are three reasons why writers should get their sweat on. In no particular order:

Healthy Body = Healthy Mind

I don't do any kind of regular workout. That is, I don't do the same workout all the time. I exercise based on the class schedule at my nearby YMCA cross-referenced with the Duke of Juban's nap schedule: Mondays I do step aerobics; Wednesdays I do power yoga (like regular yoga, but with a lot of sweating and grunting and grimacing and swearing); Thursdays I pound away at an elliptical machine for 45 minutes; and Saturdays I go spinning with the hubby.

All the workouts I do are very cardio-intensive. I sweat a LOT. Like, buckets. Like, if I am not hoopy and forget my towel, I probably shouldn't do the class because I will leave a small pond of sweat on the floor. And with all that heart-pounding sweat comes some wonderful endorphins, endorphins which make me feel reallllllly good, y'all. So good that I am a better mother for them, and a better writer. I come home, put the little one down for his nap, shower, and then pound out an easy one thousand words. They aren't necessarily good words, but they come easy, and once they are there and written I can always go back and revise.

Our Brains Need Downtime

Writing is sedentary for my body, active for my brain. Working out is the opposite of writing. With all those classes I take, and the one day of strapping myself to a cardio machine, comes some serious downtime for my brain. Not watching TV and letting my brain go all mushy; not sleeping to recharge. But doing something active without really thinking about much more than "Sweat good! Keep going! Sweat good! Keep going!" When pop music is blasting in my ears, my heart is about to burst out of my chest, and my body feels like I-just-can't-anymore, it's hard to stress about things like character motivation or plot points. Unlike watching TV, where I shut my brain off for a while, during exercise I still have to think -- only I am extremely focused on the task at hand and on getting through jump squats/lizard pose/that elliptical hill/that spinning hill until I can breathe like a normal person again and grab some water. And I think my brain kind of likes that.

Writing is Solitary; Going to the Gym is (Kind of) Social

As I said, I go to my nearby YMCA, and I do three classes a week. The babysitting there is free, and the little one loves it. He gets to socialize with other toddlers (he's very popular because he brings the colorful Cheerios) and have some time of his own, while I go get my sweat on. My step and yoga classes are almost always full and I enjoy the comraderie that comes with the shared misery of pushing our physical limitations together. On Saturdays the husband and I put both kids into Child Watch and have a sort of modified date together, side by side on our spinning bikes.

But even outside the classes, I live in a very small community within a much larger neighborhood, which itself is part of the big bad city called New York. I know a lot of people who go to my gym, and often see them coming and going: one of the regulars in the step class is a women I've been on friendly speaking terms with for 4 years now because our sons both have the same name and used to go to Child Watch together. Another mom I'm friends with has spotted me in the cardio room while our older kids played together. On days when I feel like writing is so solitary, and so isolating, it's nice to have that bit of human interaction in the mornings.



What about you? How do you find a good mind/body balance as a writer or other creative type?