How to Keep Your Writing Mood during Stressful Times

May 25, 2024| Category: Writing Tips

We are living in stressful times, but it’s not a reason to give up writing. Writing is a creative task that can help us feel less stressed and anxious. However, you should not underestimate the condition when stress ruins your productivity and daily life. The studies show that stress of any kind impairs the cognitive function, memory, and attention. Then writing or anything related to creative endeavors turns into apathy. So, how to keep your writing mood and start being creative again?

Here are a few tips on how to keep working during stressful times:

Let Yourself Relax

Positive activities can increase the brain’s creative potential, just as stress reduces creativity. We must therefore focus our energies on the things that bring us happiness. It can involve traveling, hanging out with friends, dancing, or listening to music. Our creative faculties can be enhanced by everything that brings us joy. The best activities are still taking a walk outside or treating yourself to a short meditation session. Even a cup of coffee can do! As a result, your mind becomes more open to new ideas when you engage in such activities that naturally stimulate the diffuse mode.

Create Your Comfortable Place

Although working remotely is not a new idea, there are a number of things to take into account. These are lighting, noise level, privacy, comfort, and so on. So, to get into the writing mood, you should:

• Choose a quiet place in your living area if the whole room is not at your disposal.
• Arrange your desk so that natural light will reach it. Natural light is known to reduce sadness and enhance mood, vitality, alertness, and productivity.
• Make sure there is enough indirect light in your workspace to properly brighten the space. Avoid placing a lamp right next to a computer monitor to prevent glare.
• The right height for your work desk is crucial if you use it as a home office. The thing is that erroneous desk height can eventually contribute to the development of musculoskeletal conditions, such tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.
• Try to find a good ergonomic chair with adjustable seat tilt, arm position, arm height, and seat height. To enable rolling, it must also be on casters.
• Establish a feeling of both physical and mental safety. Setting up your home office in a place where there aren’t many distractions will help you think positively.

Manage Your Workload

Reducing stress as well as avoiding burnout can be achieved by employing workload management techniques. For instance, make a detailed list of things you should do every day. Your responsibilities would not seem too heavy this way. Moreover, creating a list provides a definitive finish line for you as a writer. It lessens the perception of mental overload. To get the maximum benefit, you should steer clear of multitasking and allow your thoughts to dwell on a single concept.

Collaborate

When working with a remote team, communication plays a special role to achieve a good result. Do not be afraid to overcommunicate! Conversely, avoid the error of presuming something and unintentionally causing your project to be delayed or not done correctly. However, you need to remember that gestures, facial expressions, and tone can’t be observed in emails or chats, so make sure your instructions are understood. What is more, having a conversation can push your thinking and inspire fresh ideas.

Spend Time with People

Social media, apps, and other forms of technology have truly encroached on our lives. Research indicates that young adults who use social media extensively have a threefold higher likelihood of experiencing social isolation compared to those who use it not so often. So, it means every one of us should disconnect from technology at least sometimes and spend time with other people. We feel relieved and worthy of ourselves when we communicate with our loved ones. They can support us in overcoming difficult and stressful situations in life. Live communication can also energize and calm us, which makes it easier for creativity to flow.

What Else?

If stress is unpredictable, the best thing you can do is to focus on managing things that are under your control. Establishing a routine is beneficial to growth and well-being. Aim for healthy eating and sleeping. And if none of these strategies is sufficient? Give yourself time and do not hesitate to ask for help if needed. Allowing your mind to ruminate on ideas for a few days will increase your chances of success significantly. You can also discover your creativity by placing yourself in the appropriate environment and psychological state.