Meditation for Writers and How it Impacts the Brain

Meditation has transformed my life on every level, from my personal to my professional life. It has helped me build a mental support system that allows me to face challenges with an open heart and clear mind. As writers, creativity is inherent in our work. We strive to fill blank pages with words that hopefully make sense when pieced together, creating characters, setting, and plot. We need our brain's cognitive functions to work effectively to do our job well. This is where meditation has helped me tremendously, as without it, I would honestly lose my mind when striving to come up with story after story.

I had the opportunity to study the practice and earn my meditation teaching certification through the Chopra Center. Along the way, I learned a few things that could benefit writers in establishing a more productive and stress-free writing routine.

First of all, what is meditation? The simplest way to describe it is as a practice that helps us transition from a state of mental activity to mental clarity or stillness. This practice involves sitting down and focusing on the breath to find a calm, peaceful state of mind. It is now widely recognized for its numerous health benefits, such as normalizing blood pressure, reducing stress, improving equanimity, focus, well-being, and enhancing immune function.

After many years of practice, I have found that meditation can help writers in the following ways:

Overcome writer's block: Sometimes the act of putting pen to paper can seem daunting, mainly because our thoughts get ahead of us. The average person has somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 thoughts per day, and an overactive mind is a recipe for disaster in the creative field. It can take us off track from our goals and keep us stuck in repeated thought loops. Meditation creates a space of expanded awareness by allowing the mind to eventually calm down. Within this state of mind, creativity can thrive as we find clarity or ground ourselves in a state of flow.

Improves concentration: Once we have liftoff in the creative writing game, regular intervals of meditation can help us concentrate on the task at hand. This practice trains the brain to focus on the present moment and resist being pulled away by the myriad distractions we inevitably face throughout the day.

Reduce anxiety: We deal with stressors on a daily basis that trigger our fight or flight response, resulting in an increased heart rate, accelerated breathing, elevated blood sugar, and a suppressed immune system, all of which can have serious negative effects on our overall health. However, when we meditate, over time we release key neurotransmitters such as dopamine and oxytocin, fostering feelings of pleasure and contentment.

Regulate sleep patterns: When starting a new project, it’s common for me to spend 1-3 hours lying awake in bed with countless project-related thoughts swirling in my head. However, research has shown that meditation can help with this issue. During meditation, our brain produces more alpha and theta brainwaves that promote deep relaxation, which can improve our ability to sleep.

With meditation gaining new levels of popularity, there are now many resources available to help you get started. Some of my favorites are Headspace, Insight Timer, Calm, and The Monroe Institute's enormous Hemi-Sync library, which also contains key resources specifically designed to help writers focus on new projects. When we feel overwhelmed by our creativity, meditation can be a useful tool to help us find the necessary calm to clear the road ahead for brilliant writing.