Minimizing The Stress And Strain Of Being A Writer

Oh, woe, being a writer is truly the toughest job of them. Okay, so that might not be true. Compared to the majority of workers, we might have things fairly cushy. However, that doesn’t mean that the stresses writers face on the job shouldn’t be taken seriously. They can get in the way of your productivity, affecting your ability to make a living and, even more crucially, can cause real injury if you’re not careful. Let’s look at a few tips to ensure you stay safe and sane when writing in your den.

Ensure that you have a comfy office

Writing involves spending a lot of time sitting in one place with your hands at a keyboard, type, type, typing away. If that’s not a recipe for repetitive strain injury, then nothing else is.

The first tip is to make sure that your office supports and comforts you, reducing the physical strain that tends to build up in your shoulders and lower back when you work for a long time. A comfortable chair, one that supports these parts of your body, and allows you to adjust the height to make sure that you’re adopting good sitting posture is a must. Here’s what I use. Otherwise, you might actually want to get a standing desk to avoid the issues of sitting too much in the first place.

Get up and stretch

Even if you do have a great ergonomic chair, you should take the time to get up and stretch your legs every hour. Even if you have a standing desk, you should shake out your body and move around a little.

For writers, it’s particularly important to do wrist stretches to make sure that you’re taking care of the parts of your body that are most likely to suffer from RSIs in the first place. One good stretch is to slowly raise your palms to the air with your arms held directly upwards for ten seconds, before slowly lowering them. Then you hold your arms by your side, holding your hands so that the back of them points to the ground for ten minutes, repeating this until you do ten of each stretch. Here are some ideas:

Work in good lighting

Aside from spending their day sitting in front of a keyboard, writers also spend a lot of time with their eyes glued to a computer monitor. Direct contact with blue light can affect you in a range of ways. For one, it can cause eyestrain, which can be stinging and annoying. It can also affect your sleep if you’re working at night. Windows allows you to switch from blue to yellow light on your monitor. Just go into Settings > Display > Night Light. Toggle on the Night Light setting and schedule when the blue light will turn off. I have mine set so that the blue light turns off at sunset.

You can also use glasses that have blue light filters, and you might want to choose a shop that offers free shipping as you might want to get more than one pair for safety. You need your eyes to see what you’re writing, so they’re 98worth protecting.

Know how to position your wrists

Enough keyboarding and mousing can lead to some pretty nasty injuries and conditions, with carpal tunnel able to effectively end your writing career if it gets bad enough. However, computer use doesn’t have to lead to such nasty injuries if you take care of yourself.

Make sure your chair is positioned so that your hands are raised just above the level of the keyboard but below the level of your elbows. You shouldn’t be reaching up to type at the keyboard, nor should you be typing at any angle other than straight, if you can help it. Also, keep your wrist straight when using your mouse.

Know your limits

Because of the intensive nature of the work, writers can get into some pretty unhealthy patterns (like skipping meals) in order to get those 5,000 words a day (or however many it is) out there. For one, it’s important to set realistic expectations for how much you can reasonably write in one workday, make sure that your getting paid a decent rate per word, and try not to push your limits. Burnout is a very real risk. If a writing piece involves a lot of research, then be sure to include that time in your calculations, as it counts as work all the same, even if it doesn’t involve any typing.

Choose a time that best fits you

A lot of writers end up being night owls, for some reason. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with this if it is truly when you’re at your most productive. Just make sure you’re negating the risk of eyestrain and sleep disruption and it can work fine. However, if you end up working late due to procrastination more than anything, you should make an effort to try scheduling out different writing times to see what works best for you.

Having a pre-work preparation ritual, such as getting dressed, eating breakfast, and taking a walk might be able to help you better switch on your “work mode” at any time of the day. Stick to your most productive time once you find it.

Know when to take breaks


Due to the intensive nature of professional writing, it’s easy for stress to build up, especially if you’re writing to a deadline. Burnout is a real risk that you should stay keenly aware of. You should make sure to schedule breaks to allow yourself to breathe, be it at certain times or whenever you hit a certain word count. Be willing to take impromptu breaks, as well. If you start to feel yourself getting distracted or you feel like your head is starting to get too fussy, then you should take a break, get away from the computer, and take a moment to breathe or even to chat to someone.

With the tips above, you can ensure that you’re able to fire off thousands of words without worry of getting burnt out or of doing real injury to yourself.