A Funny Thing Happened After Yoga

                

                7:00 – Get up and make bed (Thanks mom for ingraining that in me!)

                7:15 – Treadmill 

                7:45 – Yoga

                8:15 – Shower

                8:45 – Work until I get hungry or frustrated

That’s my morning schedule. The treadmill and yoga are recent additions after my daughter invited me to do yoga at a local lavender farm. I had to brush up on my yoga positions so I didn’t make a complete fool of myself. (I did almost fall into the lavender at one point but overall, I did OK.) But a funny thing started happened after my daily yoga…

More days than not, I find the last two things on my list switched. After the final Namaste, I am suddenly gripped with an idea/re-write/phrase that I have to capture. There is no starting my day staring at a blank screen…waiting. Words are eager to pour out of me. I find myself at my desk in yoga pants, typing furiously, worried that taking time for a shower will allow the words to slip away.

In the beginning, this was a puzzling experience for me. As a newbie yogi, I have to focus on the instructions of the incredibly flexible instructor on my screen as well as try not to fall over. It isn’t as if I have time to mull over obstacles in my writing and come up with solutions. So where are these idea bursts coming from?

Yep, from the exercise. So, if your doctor harping on you to be less sedentary wasn’t enough, I’m here to tell you that several studies have shown a link between increased activity and creativity. Researchers at Austria’s University of Graz point to increased blood flow and endorphins that encourage original and abstract thoughts. Normally, I would be rolling my eyes at this point but I’ve experienced it in my life. 

It isn’t just me! Novelist Claire Cook regularly writes about her daily walks. She wrote 24 novels so far. Coincidence? Some heavy hitters like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Ernest Hemingway, Friedrich Nietzsche, Philip Roth and Henry David Thoreau all credit regular exercise with increased creativity in their own lives. So grab your sneakers, boxing gloves, bicycle, yoga mat, pickleball racket – whatever it is that gets your heart rate up and see if it gives you a creativity burst also.

Don’t exercise to decrease your waistline; exercise to increase your word count.