We tend to think of writing as something that happens “up here,” between our ears. But I’ve come to think that writing is a physiological event, not just a mental one—that it involves the whole organism, not just the brain.
Which means that writer’s block is not a failure of mental willpower but a physiological state. And if that’s the case, there is most likely a physiological solution.
Fascia!
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I’ve recently become obsessed with fascia, the connective tissue of the body.
Last month, I attended the Seventh Annual International Fascia Research Congress in New Orleans. Yes, I am now a full-blown fascia-ist. Fascianista? While I was at the congress, I listened to lectures and presentations of scientific reports as well as watched videos of cadaver dissections. And here’s my best summary:
For years, everyone thought fascia was just packing peanuts, the gristle you cut away to get to the “important” parts: organs, bones, muscles. But then anatomists started realizing, Whoa. Fascia is cooler than that. It’s a three-dimensional crystalline network running through everything: organs, tendons, bones. It’s dynamic. It’s alive. It’s loaded with sensory neurons.
And fascia remembers. That’s the kicker. Muscle memory? A misnomer. It’s actually fascia that does the recording. Fascia is where “the score is kept,” as Bessel van der Kolk would say. In 2015, fascia was officially declared an organ by the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists. (Finally, some respect!)
At the congress, I saw a video of a body with the whole fascial net removed intact. It looked like a superhero suit made of spiderweb and mush, all connected. You realize: This isn’t decoration. It’s a living memory palace of the body.
So every time somebody said to you as a kid, Sit still; Shut up; You’re being bad; or Shame on you, your fascia remembered. It laid down a holding pattern to protect you. Which means that when I sit down to write and feel “blocked,” I’m not just up against today’s project. I’m up against a lifetime of embodied Stop. Don’t. Bad.
Polyvagal Theory
Polyvagal theory adds another layer. Before 1996, scientists thought the nervous system had two gears: sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest). But Stephen Porges came along and said, There’s a third system: Freeze.
What used to be considered a failure of fight or flight—“You just shut down”—Porges reframed as its own adaptive circuit, governed by the dorsal vagus nerve. When this system kicks in, you go into lock and block. Hello, writer’s block.
Now here’s the hopeful part. The vagus nerve runs from the brainstem down through the body, carrying signals both ways. Afferent nerves arrive at the brain, bringing body-to-brain messages. Efferent nerves exit the brain, sending commands back out. And here’s the ratio that blew my mind: Four times as many signals go up from the body to the brain as down from the brain to the body.
In other words, the body has more to say about the state of your creativity than your brain does. We can learn to speak the body’s language to shift the nervous system from shutdown into what Porges calls “create and connect” mode.
The Body’s Language
How do we speak the body’s language?
Well, for starters, we can listen. I can notice where my body is in space (proprioception) and what it feels like inside my body (interoception). I don’t need to fix anything. Just noticing is corrective. Eastern traditions have been saying this forever. Add in slower breathing, letting the fascial net loosen, and the body starts to whisper to the brain: You’re safe. You can create.
My Writing Method
I have a writing method that I have used for years. I give myself two options:
Write.
Or take a break. But the break has rules.
On a break, I can only notice sensory events. I can watch my breath. I can sip coffee and pay attention to the taste and temperature. I can walk and notice the feeling of my body moving through space. What I can’t do: check email, plan my grocery list, compose imaginary revenge speeches.
Creativity Essential Reads
If I want to think strategically, I go back to writing.
So I toggle. If I’m sick of writing, I switch to sensing. If I’m bored of sensing, back to writing. I’m using the resistance of one to propel me into the other, like tacking a sailboat into the wind. Resistance becomes propulsion.
And in sailing, if you fail to tack, you end up “in irons”—stuck, sails flapping, going nowhere. That’s writer’s block.
My toggling keeps me moving, keeps me from getting locked up in irons.
The German Word leisure
I recently learned the German word muße from Philipp De Vries on the German Gems episode of my podcast 50 Words for Snow, where my cohost Emily Garces and I hunt for words that lack an English equivalent. leisure means a kind of restorative rest, not just distraction. I could rest by watching YouTube, but that only stimulates the strategic mind. True rest is what actually restores the body, softens the fascia, and returns me to curiosity. That’s the kind of rest I want to toggle with writing.
Freedom from Shame
I’ve heard writers say, “I don’t like writing, but I like having written.” Funny, but such a bummer. I think writing can be more enjoyable if we stop treating it like a moral test of willpower.
If I see writer’s block as physiological, then there’s no shame. My nervous system is just doing its job: protecting me, holding me. My work isn’t to muscle through with willpower but to soothe and redirect the system—invite it back toward safety, toward curiosity, toward play.
