The Science Behind Writing Drunk and Editing Sober

The Science Behind Writing Drunk and Editing Sober Ernest Hemingway's famous advice was to "write drunk, edit sober". Should we? Let's see what science says. Alcohol boosts creativity Alcohol has been shown to depress certain responses in the brain, and misdirect information, resulting in unusual connections/ Creativity, after all, is your ability to think of something original Drinking alcohol also makes you less focused because it decreases your associations being formed. That has the potential to be very helpful for creative tasks, like writing. working memory. You start to care less about what's happening around you. The upside to this is that it boosts your imagination and inner consciousness. This is great for writing where you sometimes need to "think from connections made between pre-existing ideas in your brain. outside the box". Tipsy not drunk Sipping doesn't help though. You need to get to your "effect point" without going over. Then you can sip occasionally 0.07% of blood alcohol More than 2 to 3 drinks is considered the sweet spot for creativity. That's about 2 to 3 drinks. So the idea is to get tipsy, and you'll be worse off than if you had nothing (and end up with a bad hangover to boot). not drunk. for maintenance. Study Another study involved 18 advertising creatives who were split into two groups. One group was allowed to drink all the alcohol they wanted, while the other group drank water. For three hours, each group worked on an ad campaign. 1. 40 men completed 20 word-puzzles. Half were sober and the other half were just below 0.075 of blood alcohol content. THE RESULT? The sober guys took 32% longer to solve the problems and solved only six correctly vs. nine for the fellows with a buzz. Alcohol seemed to help by defocusing the mind and allowing it to make more diverse connections. THE RESULT? The drinkers came out on top, with four out of the five best ideas, as well as the most ideas. Don't edit drunk As alcohol decreases your working memory and allows you to be easily distracted, there are certain tasks that don't mix well with it. Booze and doing your taxes doesn't mix. Booze and driving a Booze and editing car doesn't mix. doesn't mix. That's right, don't edit drunk. Editing requires concentration and an eye for detailL Alcohol inhibits both. While a few drinks may open up creativity when writing, you don't need much creativity for good grammar. Try editing with coffee Coffee has the opposite function of alcohol because caffeine provides us with more working memory so we can focus on a task. Coffee also helps you ignore distractions, which you need when you're editing your own work. The science behind coffee Our brains rely on a You start to garner the Coffee isn't giving you Luckily for us our adenosine receptors have a significant fault which we can exploit: they prefer caffeine to adenosine. more energy per se, it's simply telling your body that your energy reserves are good to go even when they're long gone. chemical called adenosine benefits of this effect to tell our brains when within 10 minutes and it we're low on energy. It signals our brains to work can last up to two hours. slower and decrease When caffeine gets into energy demand. Consequently we feel "tired" and "foggy". our system, it displaces the adenosine, and tells our brains "Oh, everything is fine-you keep working at full capacity-trust me!" Sum up Perhaps Hemingway's famous quote should be: "Write a bit tipsy, edit with coffee". Better advice, but not as catchy. Sources: TH E www.medicaldaily.com/how-drinking-alcohol-makes-you-more-creative-drink-more-aha-moments-271026 blog.crew.co/coffee-vs-beer-effects-on-creativity/ www.psychologytoday.com/blog/choke/201204/alcohol-benefits-the-creative-process www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297475/pdf/jrsocmed00002-0042.pdf www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0306460384900406 blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-real-neuroscience-of-creativity/ E-X-P.E·R·T EDITOR *......