Health Check

Pushing to get a book written can be hard on a writer's health. You tend to stay sedentary for long periods of time; you often let yourself get dehydrated; and the temptation to snack at your desk is pretty high. If you're truly in the throes of creativity---or pushing a tight deadline---you may also be shorting yourself on sleep.

I've fallen prey to all these temptations, and the result has been packing on a lot of pounds I don't need and am having a lot of trouble shedding. If you'd like to avoid the same fate, try these tips:

• No matter how busy you think you are, get up from your chair every fifteen or twenty minutes to move around. Set a timer if you need to, but move! Walk around a little, stretch, do a light exercise or two. You'll feel better for it, and I personally find that my brain works better when I get my circulation moving regularly.
• Keep a glass of water at your desk and keep sipping on it. This has three benefits. It will help you stay hydrated, which will keep you in a better mood and reduce the likelihood that you'll get a headache or wind up with constipation. As people also have a tendency to mistake thirst for hunger, drinking water will make you less inclined to snack when you're not really hungry. Good hydration will also force you to get up and go to the bathroom regularly, which feeds into the goal of getting out of your chair and moving around frequently.
• Do not snack at your desk. This leads to mindless eating, which when combined with inactivity tends to fuel weight gain. The kinds of foods that are convenient for workplace snacking also tend to be highly processed and loaded with fat and sugar, none of which are conducive to good health. If you're hungry, get up, fix yourself something decent to eat, and eat it in the kitchen or dining room. Added bonus: if you reserve your work space for work only, you'll be training your brain to get down to business when you sit down at your desk.
• As much as possible, keep a regular wind-down routine and regular sleep hours. Very few people thrive on less than seven hours of sleep per night, and you're not likely to be one of them; most do best somewhere in the range of seven to nine hours per night. Give your mind the benefit of sufficient rest and it will function much better; you'll also be less tempted to snack on calorie bombs to keep propping up your sleep-deprived energy level.
  
• While we're on the subject of sleep, DO NOT take your computer, tablet, or cell phone to bed with you! It's best not to take your work into the bedroom at all. If you're the sort who sometimes has brilliant ideas hit you in the middle of the night, keep a note pad and pen on your nightstand so that you can scribble down those moments of inspiration without tempting yourself to keep going for hours.

If you're young, start proper habits now and you'll never regret them. If you're older, it's never too late to change. Happy writing!