There’s a lot of great things about our increasingly digitized society; the nearly infinite amount of information we have instant access to, the speed of which we can learn things, the ability to communicate with people at virtually any time or anywhere.
However, with regards to our minds, the wonders of technology can come at a steep cost.
The endless day-to-day digital distractions can wreak havoc on your ability to focus, which in turn can kill your productivity, increase anxiety levels, and even weaken your critical thinking skills. Think of the mind as any other muscle, if you don’t challenge it, it turns weak and flabby.
And that’s where the immense benefits of daily writing come in.
By spending some time every day to write, you’ll retrain it for greater focus. This strengthened ability to concentrate not only improves your productivity but also allows for mental clarity and sharpened thinking skills.
Now that we know this, let’s take a deeper look at the ways everyday writing makes your brain healthy.
1) Writing Makes You Smarter
While the affect writing has on your brain power isn’t set in stone, there’s some strong evidence showing that daily writing can boost your IQ. As stated in a report out of the University of Victoria, “Writing as part of language learning has a positive correlation with intelligence.”
When you write, you’re exploring language. This leads to expanding your vocabulary, improving your sentence structure, and enhancing your organizational skills – all things, that when done well, are a strong signifier of overall intelligence.
2) You’re Warming Up Your Brain
Similar to how a morning workout gives your energy levels a boost, morning writing provides the benefit of getting your mind nice and sharp to take on the mental challenges of the day.
Here’s a quick breakdown of how writing stimulates the brain:
Parietal Lobe – The Parietal Lobe is where language and words are processed and interpreted. Writing in the morning activates this lobe, allowing you to hit the ground running as soon as you get to work.
Frontal Lobe – Writing also give the Frontal Lobe a solid workout. This part of the mind is not only connected with your ability to write and speak properly but also is responsible for reasoning, planning, movement, judgement and problem solving – all things that are critical to the sort of tasks people face at the office or in their own business.
Having your brain ready to go full throttle as soon as you get to work will keep you from wasting valuable morning time while you “ease” into things, making your day that much more effective and productive.
3) Boosting Your Emotional Intelligence
One of the biggest factors regarding a person’s success in work and life is their level of emotional intelligence. The ability to control your emotional responses is key to creating a healthy mindset while allowing you to relax and perceive what’s happening around you in a rational, objective way. Daily writing, specifically journaling, is a tremendous outlet for organizing your thoughts, quieting the chatter in your mind, and improving your self-awareness – all core components of a high emotional IQ.
4) Enhance Communication Skills
Believe it or not, the ability to articulate/communicate your thoughts onto paper crosses over to actual spoken communication. Of course, if your writing skills are poor (structure, grammar, vocabulary) – something that in a pinch academic writing services can help you with – the vocalization of your thoughts won’t benefit from your writing, but if you focus on improving your written communication, you’ll eventually see it translate over to the spoken word as well.
5) Self-Discipline
One of the words you constantly hear in connection with writing is “discipline” – and for good reason. Whether it’s for 15 minutes or an hour, it takes serious discipline to consistently adhere to a writing schedule. The longer you stay disciplined, the stronger your mindset becomes, and you’ll discover that your writing habits translate into other areas of your life; working out, keeping your house clean, eating healthy, focusing at work and anything else that requires a strong frame of mind.
6) Writing Helps Heal Your Mind
Stress or unhappiness is often the result of your brain racing around in circles as it gets stuck in the vicious circle of overthinking. However, writing, especially expressive writing, can slow the spinning down and allows your thoughts to untangle themselves. This leads to immense benefits such as the reduction of anxiety and stress and improved sleep.
7) Enhance Your Creativity
Whether you attempting to write a short story, a novel, or just practicing some stream of consciousness writing, putting your ideas and thoughts onto paper taps into your creative muscles. Not only will you discover a level of imagination you didn’t know you had, but losing yourself in a session of creative writing can have deeply therapeutic effects, putting you in a relaxed state that can help you through the rest of your day.
8) Boosts Your Confidence
Affirmations are powerful things. And while saying or thinking them to yourself can have a beneficial effect on your mindset, writing them down along with any associated positive experiences can give you a nice release of dopamine and endorphins that will help melt away any confusion or self-doubt dragging down your mood. Even better, after creating a nice journal of positive experiences, affirmations and achievements you’ll now have something to quickly refer to whenever you need a quick boost.
Conclusion
As I’ve laid out above, writing offers immense mental health benefits. And while it might take some time to get into the swing of daily writing, the more patient and consistent you are, the easier it will become and the better you’ll get at it. Don’t put a ton of pressure on yourself either. Try starting out writing a few times a week, and as time goes on see if you can add another day or two from there.
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