Rest Your Brain, Write Your Best

‍

For this week’s post, I’m coming to you from a hospital bed.

‍

Apparently, I had two mini strokes last week — eye strokes — where I lost my vision for a couple of minutes in one eye. My doctor was freaked out and sent me to the E.R. The E.R. doc was freaked out and admitted me for tests and observations.

‍

Results: not quite conclusive, but general consensus is that it’s an early warning sign of what could have been a more catastrophic stroke event.

‍

I’m on blood thinners and should go home after my last test later today.

‍

Now, what’s interesting about that for a post to Christian writers?

‍

I couldn’t think of anything at first. But lying here, it occurred to me that I can’t afford to give up one ounce of cognitive ability. For years, I’ve noticed there is a massive difference between my writing in the morning and my writing in the afternoon. 

‍

A massive difference between writing sharp and writing dull. And that makes me wonder — can I extend sharp time? Can I protect it? Can I do more of my best work if I learn to treat my brain like the instrument it actually is?

‍

So let’s start with strokes, move into what they reveal about the brain, and end somewhere useful: a biblical case for treating your mind as a stewardship issue, not just a spiritual one.

‍

What a Stroke Actually Does

‍

A stroke happens when blood flow to part of the brain is interrupted. Either a clot blocks an artery, or a blood vessel ruptures. Either way, brain cells that depend on that blood flow begin to die within minutes. 

‍

Thank God, if that’s what happened to me, it was temporary. But the damage can be permanent.

‍

What makes a stroke so frightening — beyond death — is what happens after. People who suffer strokes often remain alive but lose access to important parts of themselves. 

‍

When I was a kid I mowed lawns, and one of my customers was a man who had had a stroke. He would try to talk to me. He’d sound like Porky Pig, “budea, budea, budea, budea,” for about 30 seconds, and then burst out with a very clear and blasphemous “GD, I can’t talk!” 

‍

I was patient as I waited for him to say enough so that his wife could translate. This worked fine except for the one time he tried to warn me of a “sn-sn-s-s-sn-sn-sn-sn-sn-snake!” 

‍

Another example was my dear voice teacher, Richard Best, who sang for twenty years at the Metropolitan Opera. He had a stroke and lost, not his ability to speak, but to memorize lines and to match pitch! 

‍

Can you imagine? I always felt he was like a bird without wings. He managed to be a rare voice teacher who taught without modeling. Strokes are serious and can attack many different places in the brain with various consequences. 

‍

Speech. Memory. Reading. Movement. The capacity to follow a thought to its conclusion. A stroke doesn’t just threaten your life. It threatens the you that does the living.

‍

What This Reveals About the Brain

‍

Here is what lying in a hospital bed does for you: it makes the obvious feel urgent.

‍

My brain is physical. It runs on blood. It needs oxygen. It is vulnerable to interruption. 

‍

And the quality of my thinking on any given day is not simply a matter of inspiration or discipline — it is also a matter of biology.

‍

I have known for years that I write better in the morning. What I hadn’t fully reckoned with is why. Research on cognitive performance consistently shows that attention, working memory, and decision-making — the exact capacities that drafting and revising require — are not stable across the day. They vary with sleep, circadian rhythms, fatigue, and a dozen other factors.

‍

Sleep deprivation alone degrades attention and working memory. One bad night doesn’t just make you tired. It actually impairs the cognitive functions you depend on as a writer. The difference between a sharp morning and a foggy afternoon isn’t just mood. It’s measurable function.

‍

Which means this: the time of day you write, and the quality of sleep you got before you sit down, are not trivial lifestyle preferences. They are writing decisions. They shape what you are capable of producing.

‍

I have often treated my mental sharpness like a personality trait. Something I either had or didn’t on a given day. What I should have been treating it as is a resource. One that can be protected, depleted, extended, or squandered.

‍

What the Bible Has to Say About It

‍

We are not brains on sticks. We are not disembodied souls temporarily inconvenienced by having a body. Scripture doesn’t teach contempt for the physical. It teaches stewardship of the whole person.

‍

The same God who breathed life into dust, who took on flesh in the Incarnation, who promises resurrection of the body — that God is not indifferent to whether you sleep. 

‍

He is not uninterested in whether you run yourself into the ground and then expect to do your best work.

‍

Psalm 127 says that God gives sleep to His beloved. That’s not a throwaway verse. It’s a statement about how God designed human beings to function. Rest is not laziness. It is part of the structure of a life that produces good work.

‍

Paul tells us in Romans 12 to offer our bodies as living sacrifices — which is our reasonable act of worship. Our bodies. The whole apparatus. Including the brain that forms sentences, holds arguments, and moves readers toward God.

‍

If I want to write faithfully for a long time, I need more than prayer for inspiration. I need to honor the body and brain through which that work happens.

‍

A Plan for Writing Better, Longer

‍

Here is what I’m taking away from this week, and what I’d offer to you.

‍

Protect your sharpest hours. For most writers, that’s morning. Find out when you’re sharpest and guard that window for your hardest creative work. Don’t fill it with email, social media, or administrative tasks.

‍

Take sleep seriously as a writing discipline. This is not optional advice. Sleep deprivation impairs the cognitive functions writing depends on. If you want to write better, sleep is part of the job.

‍

Stop romanticizing exhaustion. There is a temptation in creative and ministry circles to wear depletion as a badge. It is as waste. God gave you a mind to steward, not to run into the ground to look and feel busy.

‍

Pay attention to warning signs. Not just physical ones. If your writing has been flat, foggy, or forced for weeks, that’s information. Ask what’s happening in your body, your sleep, your schedule.

‍

Partner with God for the long haul. The goal is not one great burst of writing. It is decades of faithful, clear, Spirit-led work. That kind of longevity requires stewardship — of your calling, your time, your relationships, and yes, your brain.

‍

I hope I’m home by the time you read this. If I had a stroke at all, it was a TIA, and eye-stroke. A warning sign to take good care of myself and swallow a blood thinner every day. 

‍

Write well. Sleep. Guard your mornings. And take care of the instrument God gave you to do the work.

‍

Jeff

‍