Activity, Meet Creativity
About a year ago, I read Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami, who’s had a successful career writing books for the last few decades. He’s an author who pops up on my radar every so often, and I intend to read Norwegian Wood this year (it’s been on my TBR for a while). So, though I have yet to read a work of his fiction, I picked up this essay collection because I find the insights into other writers’ minds incredibly valuable.
One of the essays was about how he structures and spends his days. I’ve learned that there’s no “one size fits all” formula for how to curate a writing routine, so what I found interesting—and that still circles around my noggin every so often—is Murakami’s insistence that exercise be part of his days. He actually has strong feelings about all writers having some activity as a staple to their routines.
Murakami notes how research has found a correlation between aerobic exercise and the production of neurons in the hippocampus. It’s a great thing, to be generating those cells, yet “in twenty-eight hours these newly formed neurons will disappear without having served any purpose. It’s a real waste. But give these newly formed neurons some intellectual stimulation and they are activated…In other words, the network within the brain becomes broader and denser. The ability to learn and remember is elevated” (Murakami, 2015).
I’m intrigued by this avenue by which I can naturally produce a resource that can help me display what he refers to as “exceptional creativity.” It’s about setting yourself up to “think in more complex ways and…come up with bolder, original ideas…[T]he everyday combination of physical exercise and the intellectual process provides an ideal influence on the type of creative work the writer is engaged in” (Murakami, 2015).
This strikes me as relevant for a few reasons. Not only has Murakami’s essay been rattling around my brain for the last year, but I know lots of people are probably setting fitness goals for 2026. It’s also been on my mind because this past November I started weightlifting with my husband and doing better about getting my daily steps. I’ve been noticing how consistently committing to this exercising has made me feel, physically and mentally. Now that I’m getting back into the swing of things with consistent writing again, I’m curious if I’ll observe any impacts the lifting and walking have on my creative energy. Science, it seems, would suggest that I should take notice of something positive.
Activity and activeness have an impact starting in our childhoods and on our early development. Because exercise has a tie to cognition, executive functioning is brought into this conversation, and we look at a child’s ability to regulate and control themselves/their behaviors. Increased aerobic exercise has translated to better executive functioning, which expands one’s capacity to “develop imagination, experience empathy, act creatively, and to self evaluate thoughts and actions” (Tomporowski et. al, 114). I know the language used here is child, but children and adults have similar biological responses to regular exercise so benefits are not applied only to one demographic (Tomporowski et. al, 112).
We’re talking about brain vitality here, and I don’t know about you but I want to take care of my mind. I want a brain that’s firing on all cylinders, crafting original plots, and solving the puzzles my writing poses to me. Do you want that, too?
Health, of course, is not just one thing, and what it means and what it takes for a person to be holistically healthy varies from situation to situation. I’m not trying to say that incorporating aerobic exercise into your life is going to solve everything or suddenly turn around your creative endeavors. It’s not magic.
It is, though, the work that makes the magic happen, and isn’t it lovely to think that the time you spend dancing, running, swimming, hitting a tennis ball, gardening is going to make a difference in the stories you craft and the characters you create? Movement is good for your mind, good for what you aspire to make.
You may be working on establishing a writing routine for yourself, or you may be like me—someone who had a routine and now is adapting it to accommodate changes. It’s a good thing that it’s never too late to try something new or pivot to something you hope will make a positive difference on your writing.
I hope 2026 has gotten off to a productive, creative start for you. I’ll be back here next week with something new, of course, so, until then, be well, friends!
Work Cited:
Tomporowski, Phillip D., et al. “Exercise and Children’s Intelligence, Cognition, and Academic Achievement.” Educational Psychology Review, vol. 20, no. 2,
2008, pp. 111–31. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23364116. Accessed 7 Jan. 2026.
Murakami, Haruki. Novelist as a Vocation, Knopf, 2015.