Admit it—it can be easy to let your mind wander while
working on a paper—maybe you get distracted by bills, work, or something else.
While this can be inevitable, it can also lead towards more distractions where you aren't working in the present in ways that move you forward towards your future
goals. In this blog post, I’d like to share how I used the practice of yoga to
decrease distractions and increase productivity while writing
my dissertation.
What does yoga have to do with writing? Well, not much
really—not directly anyway. For me, though, yoga has served as one way for me
to practice mindfulness
by working on my drishti—where
I focus my attention. In other words, it has helped me learn to stay focused on
the present moment, so I could, for instance, sit down and focus on writing my
dissertation instead of worrying about x, y, or z—in other words, whatever else
was going on in my life.
When I was working on my dissertation, I was also going
through other “stuff” and that other “stuff” tended to take the front seat to
the dissertation (seriously, I will save you the details of the “stuff”). Life
happens, of course, and sometimes tending to that does need to come first. That
said, it’s important to be able to strike a balance among life, work, school,
and other “stuff” so everyday life (and not-so-everyday life) doesn’t distract
us from working towards our current and future goals, such as writing that dissertation,
graduating, and moving on and up in our careers.
One thing that has helped me find that balance is the
practice of yoga. More specifically, yoga has helped me de-stress
and practice
self-care so that when unexpected “stuff” happens—when just everyday life
happens—I feel more calm and mindful so I can focus on both the present (such
as writing that dissertation) while also dealing with life and “stuff.” To be clear, this increased focus has helped
me consider what actions I need to take in the moment, so I can both take care
of things as they come, move forward through them, and continue towards my
future goals so I don’t become “stuck.”
While learning writing skills is important, as both a
student and a teacher, I noticed that other skills are equally important—skills
such as mindfulness—that we may or may not have naturally acquired.
For me,
like the skill of scholarly writing, mindfulness is something I had to learn
and, like writing or any other skill, it takes continual practice. Admittedly,
any type of exercise can likely help, but for me, yoga, with its focus on the mind-body connection, has been about working
on grounding myself in the present. That said, I wanted to share this strategy that
isn’t so much about a direct writing skill, but about self-care that fosters
the development of other skills, such as writing.
Have any mindful writing tips of your own? We would love to
hear what helps you get into the “Write mindset"!
Veronica Oliver is a Writing Instructor in the Walden Writing Center. In her spare time she writes fiction, binge watches Netflix, and occasionally makes it to a 6am Bikram Yoga class.
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