Category Archives: brain function

Should Writers Fast?

Posted on by

In anything, there has to be that moment of fasting, really, in order to enjoy the feast. —Stephen Hough

* * *

Here on TKZ, we occasionally make reference to life style choices that affect our writing. We talk about the kinds of food we eat, the hours of sleep we get, and the types of exercise we do. However, there’s one behavior I don’t think we’ve covered here: fasting.

Although I don’t fast frequently, I do a 24-hour fast once a year, and I’ve occasionally tried shorter term fasts. (Translation: not very often.) Although I’m certainly not an expert on fasting, I’ve noticed a couple of things.

Besides being uncomfortably hungry, there’s another facet to denying oneself food: the effect it has on the brain. I have noticed a clarity and focus that comes with fasting that may be a benefit to authors, and that can be accomplished even with shorter, intermittent fasting.

 

What is intermittent fasting?

Intermittent fasting (IF) isn’t about what you eat. It’s about when you eat it. There are different approaches. Some people don’t eat between say 8 p.m. and noon the next day. That’s a sixteen-hour fast. Others may eat regularly five days a week and eat only one meal on two non-consecutive days.

 

A Little Background

According to Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Mark Mattson

“…our bodies have evolved to be able to go without food for many hours, or even several days or longer. In prehistoric times, before humans learned to farm, they were hunters and gatherers who evolved to survive — and thrive — for long periods without eating. They had to: It took a lot of time and energy to hunt game and gather nuts and berries.”

So, it seems our bodies are programmed for intermittent fasting.

 

The Benefits of IF

But why would we want to deny ourselves the pleasure of food? First, there are some pretty compelling health benefits associated with fasting, including weight loss, protection against type 2 diabetes, and reducing inflammation.

A 2019 article in The New England Journal of Medicine adds to those benefits.

“Until recently, studies of caloric restriction and intermittent fasting focused on aging and the life span. After nearly a century of research on caloric restriction in animals, the overall conclusion was that reduced food intake robustly increases the life span.”

Living longer means having more time to write! But there’s even more good news from that same NEJM article.

“Studies in animals show that intermittent fasting enhances cognition in multiple domains, including spatial memory, associative memory, and working memory [emphasis added]; alternate-day fasting and daily caloric restriction reverse the adverse effects of obesity, diabetes, and neuroinflammation on spatial learning and memory.”

Enhancing cognitive ability is an added bonus to the long life.

 

How Does IF Work?

According to the New England Journal of Medicine article cited above

“Glucose and fatty acids are the main sources of energy for cells. After meals, glucose is used for energy, and fat is stored in adipose tissue as triglycerides. During periods of fasting, triglycerides are broken down to fatty acids and glycerol, which are used for energy. The liver converts fatty acids to ketone bodies, which provide a major source of energy for many tissues, especially the brain [emphasis added], during fasting.”

Pushups for the gray cells!

 

The Effect of Fasting on Writing

A recent LinkedIn.com post features the experiences of author Gin Stephens and makes the case that IF is good for writers for several reasons, including

Sharper Brain Function

Noteworthy is the biological impact of IF on brain function. Fasting promotes neurogenesis—the growth of new neurons—which is linked to improved cognitive function and creativity. Moreover, the state of ketosis achieved during fasting periods can elevate mood and brain function, providing a fertile ground for creative thought. This biological edge can be particularly beneficial for writers seeking to push the boundaries of their imagination and innovate within their work.

 

Discipline and Structure

The discipline required for IF can spill over into writing practices. For creatives, structuring their day around a fasting schedule can bring a sense of order and discipline that benefits their work. The routine of an eating window encourages better planning and prioritization, skills essential for both successful fasting and successful writing.

* * *

Note: I’m not advocating any type of fasting for anyone. You should do your own research and talk to your doctor before making any change to your routine. But the research is interesting, and there is a veritable smorgasbord of information online to feast on.

So TKZers: What do you think about intermittent fasting? Have you ever tried it? If so, does it help your writing? Do you think you might give it a try?

* * *

 

Hungering for a good read this summer? Satisfy your literary taste buds with Lacey’s Star: A Lady Pilot-in-Command Novel.

On sale now at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

Your Brain when Writing

Posted on by

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

A recent article in the New York Times describing a study on the neuroscience of creative writing (‘This is Your Brain on Writing‘) provides an intriguing glimpse of what happens to your brain when writing fiction. I guess it wasn’t something I’d ever thought about in scientific terms at least – but, if this study is correct, there appears to be a number of similarities (in terms of brain function) between writers and people who are skilled at other actions such as sports or music. The study also found  differences in brain activity between professionally trained writers and novice writers who were asked to continue a short piece of fiction after a few minutes of brainstorming. What were these differences? 

Well, for starters they found that during the brainstorming section of the study, novice writers activated their visual centres of the brain, while the brains of expert writers showed more activity in regions of the brain involved with speech. The researchers concluded that novices ‘watched’ their stories like a film inside their heads while the ‘experts’ were narrating their stories with an inner voice.

Secondly, when the writers started to actually write their stories, areas of the brain crucial for retrieving factual information and holding multiple pieces of information (possibly characters and plot lines) became active.

Finally, they also found that in the expert writers the caudate nucleus (the region of the brain that plays a vital role in how the brain learns and which activates as a skill becomes more automatic with practice) ‘lit up’ in a similar way to that observed in people who were experts in music or sports.


Now, creative writing is a notoriously difficult thing to study in the brain – for a start, you don’t usually perform the creative process while lying still inside an MRI machine – and it also sounds from this article like some experts believe the results of the study are too crude to be all that meaningful. Others however feel the study provides some real insight into the regions of the brain that ‘light up’ when a person is involved in the writing process. 

For me, the most intriguing aspect of this study was that a researcher even attempted to look at what the brain does when a person is being ‘creative’ – although I so wonder whether we can ever really understand how creativity works in terms of the brain (for a start it seems to me that many writers access their creative process in very different ways). To be honest, I was also a little depressed by the novice versus expert results. I tend to be a very visual person and so I fear, had I been included in the study, my brain would have acted like the ‘novice’ during the brainstorming sessions at least (after my years of writing practice that seems depressing!)

Who knows, maybe one day neuroscientists will be able to use their studies to create a designer drug that will make us all awesome creative writers…or maybe they’ll identify the crucial area of the brain that needs to activate in order to become a bestselling author…Then again, perhaps delving too deep into the brain of a writer isn’t exactly a good idea (we can invent just too many ways for this research to be used for evil…)

So what research would you like to see in the science of creativity? I think it would be cool to see whether the brains of brilliant writers work differently to mere mortal folks like me and (as brilliance so often comes with madness) whether mental illness has an impact on the creative process.

What about you? If you could be included in a study on the neuroscience of writing, what kind of study would it be?

Your Brain when Writing

Posted on by

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

A recent article in the New York Times describing a study on the neuroscience of creative writing (‘This is Your Brain on Writing‘) provides an intriguing glimpse of what happens to your brain when writing fiction. I guess it wasn’t something I’d ever thought about in scientific terms at least – but, if this study is correct, there appears to be a number of similarities (in terms of brain function) between writers and people who are skilled at other actions such as sports or music. The study also found  differences in brain activity between professionally trained writers and novice writers who were asked to continue a short piece of fiction after a few minutes of brainstorming. What were these differences? 

Well, for starters they found that during the brainstorming section of the study, novice writers activated their visual centres of the brain, while the brains of expert writers showed more activity in regions of the brain involved with speech. The researchers concluded that novices ‘watched’ their stories like a film inside their heads while the ‘experts’ were narrating their stories with an inner voice.

Secondly, when the writers started to actually write their stories, areas of the brain crucial for retrieving factual information and holding multiple pieces of information (possibly characters and plot lines) became active.

Finally, they also found that in the expert writers the caudate nucleus (the region of the brain that plays a vital role in how the brain learns and which activates as a skill becomes more automatic with practice) ‘lit up’ in a similar way to that observed in people who were experts in music or sports.


Now, creative writing is a notoriously difficult thing to study in the brain – for a start, you don’t usually perform the creative process while lying still inside an MRI machine – and it also sounds from this article like some experts believe the results of the study are too crude to be all that meaningful. Others however feel the study provides some real insight into the regions of the brain that ‘light up’ when a person is involved in the writing process. 

For me, the most intriguing aspect of this study was that a researcher even attempted to look at what the brain does when a person is being ‘creative’ – although I so wonder whether we can ever really understand how creativity works in terms of the brain (for a start it seems to me that many writers access their creative process in very different ways). To be honest, I was also a little depressed by the novice versus expert results. I tend to be a very visual person and so I fear, had I been included in the study, my brain would have acted like the ‘novice’ during the brainstorming sessions at least (after my years of writing practice that seems depressing!)

Who knows, maybe one day neuroscientists will be able to use their studies to create a designer drug that will make us all awesome creative writers…or maybe they’ll identify the crucial area of the brain that needs to activate in order to become a bestselling author…Then again, perhaps delving too deep into the brain of a writer isn’t exactly a good idea (we can invent just too many ways for this research to be used for evil…)

So what research would you like to see in the science of creativity? I think it would be cool to see whether the brains of brilliant writers work differently to mere mortal folks like me and (as brilliance so often comes with madness) whether mental illness has an impact on the creative process.

What about you? If you could be included in a study on the neuroscience of writing, what kind of study would it be?