Writing by hand – it’s my thing!

In this post, I share links to several articles describing the benefits and reasons for writing longhand in validation of my own experience.

After thirty years of writing longhand each and every morning, I am calling myself a Professional Journal Writer. I am 100% certain that writing serves in many ways.

After writing and researching and reading and working hard to publish two books, I call myself Author, but I don’t want my books to simply sit on your shelf. I want to encourage others to write daily. Write with wild abandon. Write, not to be read by others, but write in order to figure out what you need to be telling yourself!

My daily writing practice helps me to:

• Process and reflect on both the good and the not-so-great.
• Regulate my emotions
• Remember stuff
• Set my priorities for the day
• Remind me that there is good and evil in the world
• Commit and recommit to the power of hope, optimism and human ingenuity
• No matter whether I am celebrating the day gone by, planning for the day to come or simply trying to get my head on straight, I learn something about myself every time I pick up my pen. By writing about your successes and failures of the day, you can plot your way forward.

A significant power of my personal practice? It helps me to remember all my reasons to shine brightly, with my own inner lights

May 15, 2016 – Forbes Magazine – Three ways that writing with a pen positively affects your brain

Here are three proven ways that handwriting is good for your brain…

1. 1. Handwriting increases neural activity in certain sections of the brain, similar to meditation. According to a study performed at the Indiana University, the mere action of writing by hand unleashes creativity not easily accessed in any other way. And high-tech magnetic resonance imaging has indeed shown that low-tech writing by hand increases neural activity in certain sections of the brain, much like meditation.
   2. Handwriting sharpens the brain and helps us learn. Writing is good for keeping one’s gray matter sharpand may even influence how we think, as in “more positively,” studies show. Apparently sequential hand movements, like those used in handwriting, activate large regions of the brain responsible for thinking, language, healing and working memory.
   3. Handwriting forces us to slow down and smell the ink. Another often-overlooked benefit of writing by hand is that it just plain forces us to slow down and enjoy the moment — a novelty in today’s world where immediacy reigns. Mindful writing rests the brain, potentially sparking creativity, according to neuroscientist Dr. Claudia Aguirre.

2. January 27, 2024 – NBC News Writing by hand may increase brain connectivity more than typing, readings of student brains suggest … After recording the brain activity of university students, researchers in Norway determined that writing by hand may improve learning and memory.

“Our main finding was that handwriting activates almost the whole brain as compared to typewriting, which hardly activates the brain as such. The brain is not challenged very much when it’s pressing keys on a keyboard as opposed to when it’s forming those letters by hand,” said Audrey van der Meer, the study’s co-author and a neuropsychology professor at NTNU.

“In particular, the study found that writing by hand required communication between the brain’s visual, sensory and motor cortices. People who wrote with the digital pen had to visualize letters, then use their fine motor skills to control their movement when writing.  

3. October 6, 2023 – Scientific American published this article – write so that you get to know yourself better… 

“Does it make a difference whether you write by hand or on a keyboard? Writing by hand is a very complex movement that activates more areas in the brain, which leads to being more creative. It also usually means slowing down, which invites you to pause and take a breath. In addition, there is something sensual and unique about writing by hand. because, for one thing, our handwriting is very individual. And for another thing, it tells us something about our state of mind. In fact, handwriting usually becomes rounder and livelier when we are in a good mood and smaller or tighter when we are not feeling so well. Typing on the keyboard, on the other hand has a soothing quality because it is very rhythmic. Further, it has the advantage of allowing you to share your writing more quickly. I think it’s always good to have both skills and to use them.

4. September 24, 2023 – The Economist – The importance of handwriting is becoming better understood

“Handwriting Enhances Learning: The article highlights research showing the cognitive benefits of writing by hand. It’s believed handwriting, versus typing on a computer, improves memory and aids in understanding complex ideas. In addition, the physical act of writing reinforces the material you’re studying and leads to better recall.

• • Superior Note-Taking with Handwriting: It would seem there are advantages to handwriting when taking notes. Handwriting notes allow students to synthesize information into their own words. This leads to a better understanding of the content. Research shows students who take notes by hand tend to perform better on tests.
  • Education Policy and Handwriting: Education policies in various countries, and even in some states in the United States, emphasize the importance of handwriting instruction due to its cognitive benefits.

5. September 1, 2023 – Opinion The Globe and Mail – Learning Cursive Might Not be a Waste of time after all

6. June 22, 2023 – Globe and Mail – Cursive writing to be reintroduced in Ontario schools this fall

“Cursive is making a comeback. Relegated in 2006 to an optional piece of learning in Ontario elementary schools, cursive writing is set to return as a mandatory part of the curriculum starting in September.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said it is about more than just teaching students how to sign their own name.

“The research has been very clear that cursive writing is a critical life skill in helping young people to express more substantively, to think more critically, and ultimately, to express more authentically,” he said in an interview.

“That’s what we’re trying to do, to create a very talented generation of young people who have mastered the fundamental skills, like reading, writing, and math, that are the foundations of any successful productive life in the country.”

​7. July 9, 2021 – Psychology Today – Why does handwriting promote better and faster learning 

KEY POINTS

• • • Handwriting practice involves specific motor skills that are only engaged when writing by hand with a pen or pencil.
    • A new “handwriting and literacy learning” study shows that writing-by-hand practice promotes faster learning than non-motor writing practice.
    • The learning advantage gained by handwriting practice may be linked to the perceptual-motor experience of writing by hand.
    • Cursive handwriting engages sensorimotor brain regions that are not activated by typewriting; this neural activity helps students learn better.

… Writing or Drawing by Hand Triggers Robust Neural Activity in the Brain’s Sensorimotor Regions

“The latest JHU (John Hopkins University) handwriting research builds on the findings of a Norwegian University of Science and Technology study (Askvik, Van der Weel, & Van der Meer, 2020) from last year, which found that 12-year-old children and young adults learn more efficiently and remember new knowledge better when writing by hand instead of using a keyboard. This high-density EEG study tracked and recorded brain wave activity during classroom learning. The researchers identified neuroscience-based ways that cursive handwriting was superior to typewriting when learning in the classroom and why learning cursive is good for our brains.

“The use of pen and paper gives the brain more ‘hooks’ to hang your memories on. Writing by hand creates much more activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain,” senior author Audrey van der Meer said in an October 2020 news release. “A lot of senses are activated by pressing the pen on paper, seeing the letters you write, and hearing the sound you make while writing. These sensory experiences create contact between different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning. We both learn better and remember better.”

8. July 2020 – Frontiers in Psychology – The Importance of Cursive Handwriting over Typewriting for Learning in the Classroom: A High-Density EEG Study of 12-year old children and young adults

 “We suggest that children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting and drawing activities in school to establish the neuronal oscillation patterns that are beneficial for learning. We conclude that because of the benefits of sensory-motor integration due to the larger involvement of the senses as well as fine and precisely controlled hand movements when writing by hand and when drawing, it is vital to maintain both activities in a learning environment to facilitate and optimize learning.” 

 9. May 30, 2020 Psychology Today – The importance of writing longhand to learning and creativity

KEY POINTS

• • Writing longhand can boost analysis and recall.
    • Using pen and ink may also boost creative flow.
    • The creative process is independent of which hemisphere is used.

“… But there are reasons to consider switching to longhand, some of which are backed up by recent research.

* “My own problem with writing stuff you care about on a computer is twofold. First, it looks too good—the letters are neat and legible, the paragraphs perfectly rectangular, and my brain instinctively reacts by thinking the sentences themselves must be neat and perfect as well. Whereas when I write a sentence longhand in a scrawl that looks like a miniature cockroach took three tabs of LSD, soaked its legs in black ink, and stumbled across the page, hallucinating all the while, I am looking at something as ugly and inconsistent as my first draft most likely is—and I work hard to improve it. 

“The second reason I prefer longhand is that, because I write small and tight, I can cross out a phrase I dislike and write five others that might work better on every side. Another side-benefit of this process is, when I decide that the first phrase in the end sang better than the others, I can still read what I crossed out and put a check mark there to resuscitate its language.

10. April 21, 2016 – The Globe and Mail Report on Business – Writing in a Journal can make you more productive 

“Journaling increases your sense of awareness and this can even make you more productive. When you take the time to write your thoughts down, you will be more aware about the work that needs to be done. I find that when I journal in the evening, I know what has been done, know what I want to do, and know what I haven’t done and don’t want to do. Journaling has essentially helped me go beyond my to do list, which is exactly where you want to go.

Why does journaling work? Daniel Gilbert puts it aptly in his book, Stumbling on Happiness. He says, “We can’t trust our memories because we remember the strange and unique over the mundane and normal.”

Journaling is like a brain dump at the end of the day… You may prefer a digital version because it will give you the ability to search journal archives in a matter of seconds. You may also prefer to journal twice a day; once in the morning when you wake up and in the evening before you go to sleep.

Here are some of the specific benefits you’ll find from journaling twice daily:

• • • It will help you shape your day. While task managers and day planners will inform you on what you want (and need) to do, when you get ideas out of your head it will not only jumpstart your day, but help to shape it.
    • It will help keep you accountable. A morning journal entry will help you shape your day, and your evening entry chronicles how the day went. The later entry illustrates what you did – and didn’t – accomplish that day, which serves to create more accountability on your part. There have been times when you’ll know leading up to the later entry that you still had things to get done that day, so you will wind up doing them at that point before making the entry. The increased awareness leads to greater accountability.
    • It bookends your day in a great way. Your day will begin and end in your journal. It’s become a routine, which will actually help you stick to other routines and deal with the uncertainty that the rest of the day will bring.