According to an article by editor Kate Sullivan, yes. She says,
…writers are around eight times as likely to suffer from mental illness than those who don’t pursue writing as a career, according to Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychology professor at Johns Hopkins who wrote Touched with Fire.
Consider how this could impact you.
If you…
Have an active brain that rarely shuts off the flow of ideas
Spend too much time in isolation working on that writing project
Keep strange working hours—you write late into the night or waking very early
Get too little sleep
Don’t move your body throughout the day
Snack mindlessly or have a poor diet
Have difficulty handling the constant rejection that comes with the profession or are self-critical
…you may be more prone to depression and anxiety. If not properly managed, the above activities and behaviors can lead to exhaustion, isolation and loneliness, sleep deprivation, poor self-image, and poor physical health, which are all very strong contributing factors that can lead to mental health issues.
Do you see that any of these things could be true for you? If so, let’s look at what you can do to bring wholeness and balance back to your writing life.
What Can You Do?
Active brain? Empty it out.
Keep a journal, a Notes app on your smartphone, or a voice recorder on hand at all times to be ready to unload the ideas into safekeeping so they are no longer swimming around untamed in your head.
Isolated or lonely? Reach out.
Make a plan to call or visit with a friend a few times a week. Join a writer’s group that meets regularly. Schedule a coffee or dinner date with someone you enjoy. You can even do these virtually.
Weird schedule? Surrender to your rhythm.
…your circadian rhythm, which helps to regulate the proper release of hormones upon sleeping and waking. To keep the stress hormone—cortisol—at bay and melatonin in balance, avoid staying up past midnight. Or, instead of waking super early, just plan for maybe 5:00 a.m. if your normal time is 6:00.
Little sleep? Assess your “sleep hygiene.”
Yep, it’s a thing. Google it. See what changes need to be made. Blackout curtains, white noise machine, nicer sheets, room temperature, mattress quality, binaural sleep or meditative sounds or music—determine what you need to get those restorative 6-8 hours of sleep. Your writing self needs them.
Too sedentary? Get up and move.
Walk for at least 30 minutes every day. Is there a park nearby, a mall, a sidewalk, a museum? Believe it or not, walking helps fuel creativity and inspiration for your writing. For shorter breaks, at least every hour, stand up, reach for the sky, touch your toes, do a sun salutation, or something of the sort to stretch out and elongate your muscles to increase blood flow to your marvelous brain.
Bad eating habits? Tighten up.
Consider making detoxing part of your writing discipline. In my book Pray Hear Write, I talk about the Daniel fast and how incorporating into a particularly intense season of writing can present a great opportunity for writers to eat well and keep their spiritual and intellectual senses sharp.
As Sandra Griffin, our Pneuma Writers resident mental health expert, terms it, there literally is “food for thought.”
Food plays a direct role in how we feel physically and emotionally and how we perform/respond cognitively—focus, concentration, problem-solving, positivity. Food, in concert with proper sleep and exercise, directly impacts these factors.
[Click here to read my article “Eat to Write: Foods that Nourish a Healthy Writing Practice.”]
Hindered by rejection and self-criticism? Let. It. Go.
Lean into the words and affirmations from those who know you and love you best. Prepare a list of affirmations you can go to when negative self-talk tries to amp up. Be selective about what feedback you will engage with and what you won’t. Some writers won’t read reviews. Prepare a set of questions you can ask yourself that help you objectively consider feedback from editors or your agent, from your writing group or beta readers. Some of it will be good and some of it may not be applicable at the time. Let go of perfection and embrace excellence. See what the difference between the two means to you.
Be hard on your writing, not on yourself.
—Amy Tan
Finally, “be hard on your writing, not on yourself,” as author Amy Tan says. You can always grow in your craft and execution, but how you progress in those areas does not reflect on who you are innately.
Take Care of You
Contrary to what we’ve been led to sort of own and honor in our culture of writing, we do not have to suffer for our craft to be good writers. We can strive for balance, wholeness, and health, so we don’t sacrifice the best of ourselves on the altar of publishing. You, above and beyond your writing, are valuable. Take care of you.
If you ever feel like your emotional state is too out of control and you are unable to reign some of these areas in for your health, reach out to your primary care doctor or mental health professional. Allow them to help hold you up and give you the right and professional advice to get to a healthy place where you can produce at the level you desire to—and not only that, you’ll be healthy enough to enjoy the journey.
So, tell me, how did this information sit with you? Was it eye-opening and helpful? Have you experienced mental health symptoms similar to depression or anxiety? Did you ever think that how you go about your life as a writer would contribute to some of those symptoms?
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For more on this…
Read: Sullivan, Kate, “Shattering the Misery Myth: How to Nurture Your Mental Health as a Writer,” TCKPublishing.com, https://www.tckpublishing.com/mental-health-for-writers/. Permission pending.
Watch: Pray Hear Write One Day, One Thing Writer’s Refresher—”Healing for a Writer’s Soul" with licensed professional counselor Sandra Griffin.