As described in other features of this publication, writers expend a great deal of energy on the writing process: planning, writing and rewriting, verifying facts, getting feedback, revising, and editing. Often, finding the motivation to begin is nearly impossible, proofreading is boring, re-writing seems onerous, and feedback is harsh. And while many writers extol the virtues of formulating good habits, few consider the brain chemistry involved.

Writing habits, while seemingly superficial, may have profound effects on brain chemistry. Various studies have shown that ordinary habitual procedures, such as sleeping and eating, can profoundly influence brain chemistry. Consciously creating habits can instill a recurrence of actions that come naturally, leading to the manipulation of one’s brain chemistry, which can have significant implications on various aspects of one’s lifestyle. Multiple studies have shown that habits, as in the case of writing, are engraved in the brain in the form of paved biochemical milieu, allowing for faster response, given the proper cues.

Dr. Lee Rice, from the Life Wellness Institute, believes that one can rewire one's brain in as little as 14 days. (1) The rewiring process encompasses believing in yourself, getting rid of mistrust, writing down what you want, and announcing your changes to the world. These are reiterating tasks; thinking, analyzing, writing, announcing, while trusting, are all reassuring and positive reinforcements to the brain that can lead to biochemical changes over time.

Creating a habit can be difficult; however, numerous studies have shown the long-term benefits of doing so. Ann M. Graybiel et al. showed that the process of learning a habit can require much effort but once engraved, the habit displays a rapid response that is easily recovered after a period of absence. (2) Graybiel’s study demonstrated that acquisition and extinction of a learned response alters the firing patterns of projection neurons. When training rats to navigate through a T-maze, the spike activity of the rats was spread throughout the task time, a condition they termed neural exploration. With time, the rats became accustomed to the maze and the auditory cues that signaled them to navigate toward the left or right and their neuronal activity became focused, a condition they called neural exploitation. After a long period of desensitization, the rats more rapidly remembered and re-habitualized themselves to the cues originally learned. When tracing neuronal signals and synapses of rat brains in learning studies, a clear correlation between habit formation and brain electrochemistry is observed. Somewhat like Pavlov’s dog, the brain retains the information of habitual actions, in the form of chemistry, as demonstrated by Graybiel et al. This indicates that the brain is subject to molecular and biochemical modification through the changing of habits. The sequence goes like this: habit influences the brain, which ultimately influences overall performance.

Ann Graybiel, "Paving Habits" (2006): Graybiel's illustration of the cognitive architecture of habit formation in rats may have implications with regard to the development of effective habits for (human!) writers.

The circadian system, also referred to as the biological clock, can be trained to allow the body to perform certain functions at certain times of the biological day. For anybody who has attempted to shift sleep schedules to match work schedules, it may have become clear that it takes nearly twice the amount of sleep during the day to match the rejuvenating rest achieved during sleep at night. This is due to the fact that the body is not conditioned for such functions during the daylight hours. The efficiency of writing is likely to follow a similar pattern. Lisa C. Lyons et al, demonstrated biochemically that circadian clocks are influenced by long-term sensitization. (3) Key brain-related proteins are repressed or activated for prolonged periods of time, after the cue has stimulated, allowing for the biochemical modification of the brain, which functions as memory. This indicates that depending on the time of day, our brain chemistry is such that certain actions will be performed with greater efficiency than others, as a result of modified brain activity. On this same note, reading and writing can continually influence the activity of certain brain regions and their chemistry, leading to altered functions over time.

The process of writing paves brain biochemistry, such that through each consecutive period of writing, the overall process becomes a routine. Those who are constantly writing have much less difficulty in beginning and completing writing projects, while most of us have this very specific weakness. Many of us can start, but have difficulty developing ideas; others can go as far as to develop ideas, but cannot manage to complete the work; and yet others are very creative when presented with preliminary ideas already in existence but cannot start their own. The way we have trained our brains will dictate consequent performances. As mentioned previously, habit sensitizes the brain to perform recurring tasks with little effort, similar to the immune system’s recognition of pathogens after repeated encounters. The brain must first be trained to respond by habitualization, and this habitualization results from iterating actions.

In this issue of Revisions, multiple articles deal with tricks and suggestions for how people deal with inspiration and procrastination. Most of these suggestions describe specific repetitions, which over time shape brain circuitry. These are actions which influence the biochemistry in our brains and allow for significantly faster response and more efficient writing habits. Once the circuitry of the brain has been established and a habit has been engraved, repetition comes naturally, and ceasing the action is all that more difficult. For writers, habit is important: Develop productive habits in writing in order to re-circuit your brain.

1 Rice, Lee. “Break Bad Habits: Rewire Your Brain in 14 Days.” Paper presented at The Academy for Chief Executives’ first global CEO Conference, “Inspire 2006” (October 30 - 31, Stanmore, England).

2 Graybiel, Ann M., Terra D. Barnes, Yasuo Kubota, Dan Hu, Dezhe Z. Jin. “Activity of Striatal Neurons Reflects Dynamic Encoding and Recoding of Procedural Memories. Nature 437.7062 (2005), 1158–61.

3 Lyons, Lisa C., Maria Sol Collado, Omar Khabour, Charity L. Green, and Arnold Eskin. “The Circadian Clock Modulates Core Steps in Long-Term Memory Formation" in Aplysia Journal of Neuroscience 26.34 (2006), 8662-8671.