The Best Time to Write and Get Ideas, According to Science

Posted on Monday, March 10th, 2014

Written by Kevan Lee

What does your ideal day look like? Would you believe there’s a scientifically correct answer to the question?

Research into the human body—its hormone  allotment, its rhythms, and its tendencies—has found that there are certain times of day when the body is just better at performing certain activities. Eat breakfast no later than 8:00 a.m. Exercise between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.Read Twitter from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. (your fellow tweeters are more upbeat in the morning).

Turns out our optimal times for performing a large number of tasks are best left up to science. If breakfast can be black-and-white, does that mean writing and creativity can be, too?

The best time to write is early in the morning

Your experience with writing may contradict this morning advice, and I hear you. The consensus on a single best writing time is very much up in the air. There is still a lot we don’t know about body rhythms and the writing process.

But we can make some projections based on what we do know.

We know that willpower is a finite resource.

A large body of research suggests that we have a limited reserve of willpower, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. Researchers test this by asking participants to perform a difficult, draining task followed by a second difficult, draining task and then compare these results to a control group that got to skip the first and only perform the second. A popular method is to start participants with a Stroop test like the one pictured below:

You must identify the color of the word, not the word itself, and your speed is timed on a computer. The second part of the experiment asks participants to hold a coiled handgrip. Consistently, the control group outperforms the others, leading researchers to believe that willpower can become drained.

Naturally, willpower is beneficial to the writing process, especially for those days when we’re just not in the mood to write. Mornings, then, make the most sense since willpower can be sapped throughout the day by any number of different stressors—work, school, kids, chores, etc.

We know that the creative mind is an early riser and that the editing mind sleeps in.

Bouts of creative writing might be easier to come by just after waking as this is the time of day when the prefrontal cortex is most active.  A scientific study of brain circuits confirmed that this creative activity is highest during and immediately after sleep, while the analytical parts of the brain (the editing and proofreading parts) become more active as the day goes on. The study looked at morning and evening MRI scans and observed that mornings showed more connections in the brain—a key element to the creative process.

Together, these insights into willpower and creativity hint that mornings may be the best time of dayto write—any time from as soon as you wake until the daily tasks of your workday begin. However, the morning write time is far from set in stone, as you’ll read below.

The best time to get ideas is right after waking

Ever notice how you get some really stellar ideas while showering?

As mentioned above, creativity peaks in the morning as the creative connections in our brains are most active. If you believe that creativity is your best source for ideation, then the early morning should be your best time for new thoughts.

The greatest evidence for this effect is with dreams. Science has told us that creativity is a function of connections between many different networks throughout the brain. With that in mind, consider this observation from Tom Stafford, writing for the BBC:

An interesting aspect of the dream world: the creation of connections between things that didn’t seem connected before. When you think about it, this isn’t too unlike a description of what creative people do in their work – connecting ideas and concepts that nobody thought to connect before in a way that appears to make sense.

Try this: Ideas when you’re at your groggiest

If early morning idea sessions aren’t your cup of tea, you might be interested in a study from Mareike Wietha and Rose Zacks that found creative ideas often come at our least optimal times.

Their experiment measured insight ability and analytic ability, two components to the creative idea process. Participants identified themselves as either morning people or evening people and underwent a series of tests at different times of day. The tests for analytic ability revealed no significant findings, but for insight ability, the results were telling:

What Wieth and Zacks found was that strong morning-types were better at solving the more mysterious insight problems in the evening, when they apparently weren’t at their best.

Exactly the same pattern, but in reverse, was seen for people who felt their brightest in the evening: they performed better on the insight task when they were unfocused in the morning.

The theory goes that as our minds tire at our suboptimal times then our focus broadens. We are able to see more opportunities and make connections with an open mind. When we are working in our ideal time of day, our mind’s focus is honed to a far greater degree, potentially limiting our creative options.

The importance of routine: Larks vs. owls

If a morning writing sessions sounds insane to you, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Morning larks and night owls have very different perspectives on the best time of day to get work done, including optimal writing times. These differences have been evident for ages.

Charles Dickens was a lark. He finished his writing by 2:00 p.m. each day.

Robert Frost was just about getting started at 2:00 p.m. and would often be writing late into the night (and waking up the next day around noon).

What each of these famous authors lacked in synchronicity they made up for in routine. Their daily schedule of writing was set to the same time every day, even though the exact time was different for each writer.

It is possible, then, that the most important time of day for writing and ideas is the same time of day you always write and come up with ideas. Routines and habits could trump the clock.

In fact, the brain appreciates these habits. Routine reinforces neural circuitry, and the more you work at the same routine, the stronger those connections become. Author Amy Brann describesexactly how this added brain activity can be boosted:

Neurons will automatically be drawn to electrochemical activity. This means the more you can light up a new circuit the stronger it will become. The brain doesn’t distinguish between real or imagined thoughts when you’re lighting up circuits, so mentally rehearsing the new desired behaviour will help strengthen the neural circuit without actually performing the action.

Turns out, creating a consistent writing routine and idea habit could be just as good as searching for the best time of day. If your habitual time don’t sync with the advice above, at least be sure that your writing and brainstorming happen consistently.

When is your best time of day to write? When do you come up with your best ideas? I’d love a peek into your writing process and brainstorming sessions. 

P.S. If you liked this post, you might also like The Origin of the 8-hour Workday and Why We Should Rethink It and 5 Ways to Get Through Writer’s Block. 

Image credit: photo credit: Slaff, Psychology Today, Journal of Neurophysiology.

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About the Author

Kevan Lee

Content crafter at Buffer. You can find me online, tweeting about my writing process, or at home, second-guessing football coaches. Live simply, give generously, beat cancer.

 
 
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How to live with integrity; with 4 simple habits

By Carthage December 9, 2013

Successful people live with integrity. They say what they do and they do what they say. They are trusted by those whom they interact with and they build healthy relationships with consummate ease. These relationships then help them to achieve bigger and better things.

When you live with integrity, you influence, inspire and motivate others; not just with your words but with your actions too. Others see the positive example that you are and attempt to emulate you. When you choose to live with integrity you will experience a number of benefits, including:

• You become more valuable both as a person and as an achiever. People see your importance and the value you add.
• You get better opportunities. You become seen as somebody who gets things done. People are more willing to trust you and want to include you in the bigger projects.
• As the respect and value you command increases, you are better able to pick and choose the projects you wish to work on.
• The positive relationships which you build, lead to more people being willing to work with you. This allows you to get more done.
• You get bigger and better rewards both in terms of personal fulfilment and pay and remuneration.

How to live with integrity

The following are 4 of the most critical steps to help you live with integrity. If you turn these 4 steps into daily habits you soon begin to see some of the benefits which I have listed above.

1. Make better choices

You make thousands of decisions every day, some big but many small ones. The bigger decisions often get your full attention, allowing you to make a higher quality of decision. Do the small decisions get your full attention too? Usually not, but when you regularly make the wrong decision, it starts to add up to some big problems.

To ensure that you make better decisions on a daily basis, you need to have aclear vision for your life; a clear sense of purpose, and effective goals which will help you to realise your vision and fulfil your purpose. Life is not a set and forget process; you need to consistently remind yourself of your values, purpose and goals. When you do this, they are at the forefront of your mind, allowing you to make smarter decisions which are consistent with the person that you are and the life which you are trying to create.

 2. Develop positive habits

Many of the bad decisions you make on a daily basis will be down to force of habit. Over the years, you will have done things in a certain way until they have become second nature to you. When the situation arises, you don’t think about it, you just resort to habit. Maybe you are always late for appointments, or you consistently work late. In some cases your bad habits might not appear to be a problem for you, but they are usually a problem for others. If you want to live with integrity, you need to replace the bad habits with positive habits.

To develop positive habits, you first need to identify your bad habits. Take a few moments to list all of the bad habits of which you are aware. I would also suggest asking some trusted friends, or family, to help you identify any bad habits whcih you may have missed. Once you feel you have a completed list, go through each habit and write down the long term effects of sticking with this habit. Then, identify a positive habit which you are going to implement in its place and make a plan for how you are going to implement that new habit.

 3. Keep your agreements

Every day you make agreements, both with yourself and with others. At the time of making agreements, you will generally intend on keeping that agreement but in a busy life that often proves to be easier said than done. It may not seem like a big thing when you fail to keep an agreement but every time you break an agreement, you erode a little of the trust between you and the other person. To live with integrity, requires that you keep your word so that you can build trusting and healthy relationships.

Keeping your agreements requires an effective personal productivity system whereby you capture all of your commitments so that you can then process them and act on them. One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when it comes to commitments is relying on your memory to keep track of your agreements. Instead of memory, you need a reliable system to record your commitments and the actions you need to take. That way, you don’t need to remember every single commitment; you just need to remember to check your system on a regular basis.

 4. Raise others up

If you want to build a healthy relationship with another person, the best place to start is by finding some way in which you can help them. It could be something as simple as taking a few minutes to listen to their needs. It seems counterintuitive as you probably focus on what you need to get done. But, when you have helped somebody, they see that you have value to offer and you can be trusted. With one quick action you will have taken giant strides towards creating a healthy, new relationship.

To live with integrity is to live as your best self. Each relationship must be seen as bidirectional. By helping others, you help them to feel good about themselves, and you are also helping yourself by creating a healthy new relationship.

When you live with integrity, you live your best life. You respect yourself by living in a manner which is consistent with your values, purpose and goals. These factors guide each decision that you make, thus allowing you to achieve more. You know that you can never truly succeed on your own so you offer the same level of respect to others. You focus on building healthy, supportive relationships which are based on mutual trust and respect. There will be moments when it seems like living with integrity is the most difficult thing but in reality, when you practice the 4 steps, above, the easiest thing you can do is to live with integrity. You will have a great deal of clarity in your life, allowing you make clear, effective decisions and ensuring the important stuff gets done. When you live with integrity, the benefits and the possibilities are endless.

Image credit: Wixphoto.com

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Posted in: Emotional Intelligence

About the Author: Carthage

Carthage Buckley is a Stress and Performance Coach with Coaching Positive Performance. Carthage has more than 10 years international experience working with entrepreneurs, executives and ambitious professionals; helping them to eliminate stress and maximise performance.

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Mindfulness Meditation May Reduce Drug User Relapse

Mindfulness Meditation May Reduce Drug User Relapse

 Live Science.

Many people who undergo treatment for addiction will relapse and begin using drugs again soon after their therapy ends, but a new study suggests that meditation techniques may help prevent such relapses.

In the study, 286 people who had been treated for substance abuse were assigned to receive one of three therapies after their initial treatment: a program that involved only group discussions, a "relapse- prevention" therapy that involved learning to avoid situations where they might be tempted to use drugs, and a mindfulness-based program that involved meditation sessions to improve self-awareness.

Six months later, participants in the both the relapse prevention and mindfulness group had a reduced risk of relapsing to using drugs or heavy drinking compared with participants in the group discussions group.

And after one year, participants in the mindfulness group reported fewer days of drug use, and were at reduced risk of heavy drinking compared with those in the relapse prevention group. This result suggests that the mindfulness-based program may have a more enduring effect, the researchers said. [Mind Games: 7 Reasons You Should Meditate]

The researchers emphasized that mindfulness-based programs are not intended to replace standard programs for preventing drug relapse. 

"We need to consider many different approaches to addiction treatment. It's a tough problem," said study researcher Sarah Bowen, an assistant professor at the University of Washington's department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. Mindfulness therapy is "another possibility for people to explore," she said.

More research is needed to identify which groups of people benefit most from the approach, Bowen said.

Meditation for addiction

About 40 to 60 percent of people who undergo addiction treatment relapse within one year after their treatment ends, the researchers said.

Although 12-step and traditional relapse-prevention programs have value in preventing relapse, "we still have a lot of work to do," Bowen said.

Mindfulness-based relapse prevention, a program developed by Bowen and colleagues, is essentially a "training in awareness," Bowen said.

In this program, each session is about two hours, with 30 minutes of guided meditation followed by discussions about what people experienced during meditation and how it relates to addiction or relapse, Bowen said. The meditation sessions are intended to bring heightened attention to things that patients usually ignore, such as how it feels to eat a bite of food, or other bodily sensations, as well as thoughts and feelings.

The mindfulness program may work to prevent relapse in part because it makes people more aware of what happens when they have cravings.

"If you're not aware of what's going on, you don't have a choice, you just react," Bowen said.

The program also teaches people how to "be with" or accept uncomfortable feelings, such as cravings, rather than fight them, Bowen said. In this way, people learn skills that they can apply to their everyday lives, and not just situations in which they feel tempted, which is usually the focus of other prevention programs, she said.

Addiction and emotions

Dr. Scott Krakower, assistant unit chief of psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y., who was not involved in the study, said people with addiction often suffer from other conditions that involve problems regulating emotions, such as depression, anxiety or self-harm.

Emotional problems, such as feelings of numbness with depression, can be a reason people turn to drugs, he said.

The mindfulness program helps teach people to "tolerate feelings of emotional distress, so when they feel like they're going to use [drugs], they don’t," Krakowe said.

Krakower noted that mindfulness meditation programs have already been shown to be useful for depression.      

Future studies are needed to examine the effectiveness of the therapy for substance abuse over longer periods, Krakower said. But at the very least, it seems that the program can be helpful for people with emotional dysregulation, which is the majority of the substance abuse population, Krakower said.

The study is published online today (March 19) in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. FollowLive Science @livescience, Facebook &Google+. Original article on Live Science.