Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Love To Write

[markh]

Slightly off topic, since it doesn't mention fountain pen, or even writing by hand.

 

But I thought interesting none the less. Maybe a comment about regular journaling.

 

http://mic.com/articles/98348/science-shows-writers-have-a-serious-advantage-over-the-rest-of-us

 

 

 

 

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Edited December 19, 2014 by markh

[Runnin_Ute]

Certainly makes some sense.

[esteboune]

Yes, it makes a lot of sense.

 

I do get a lot of benefits of my daily writing sessions.

Every day, after lunch, i close my office door, switch on my tube amp, select a music album, pick the daily writer and start keeping my journal.

 

I started this a few month ago, and i do believe that my stress level decreased, my focus level did the opposite.

I talked about this with a few friends and manage to convince one of them to do the same, he is more than happy...!

 

On top of that, i completely stopped the use my computer as organiser. I make my to do list every morning, i use a nice weekly planner, (FP friendly!).

 

Last year, i was addicted to my phone and laptop, and thanks to my FP, this addiction went away and i do have a lot of pleasure using my FP on a daily basis.

 

The only problem (for my wife) is the amount of money i put in the FP....!

[______Zaphod_Beeblebrox]

I just like to write, most of the time it looks just like scribble. I cannot read most of my handwriting.

[Mr.Rene]

 

 

 

The only problem (for my wife) is the amount of money i put in the FP....!

Change your wife...!!

[DonLeone]

I'm not a psychologist or neurologist.

 

I've been reading up on a lot of stuff lately and there may be a connection here. There is research on power posing that shows that testosterone levels increase and cortisol levels decrease when taking on a power pose. Taking on a weak pose does the opposite. Testosterone raises confidence while cortisol increases stress. http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/9547823/13-027.pdf?sequence=1 I didn't read it in this source but this seems to be discussing it.

 

I've read about how the mind isn't capable of juggling much at once. I can't find where I learned about it. There was a connection between learning something without taking notes and learning while taking notes. Reviewing notes, etc. Because we can only maintain so much in our Random Access Memory, having stuff in Read Only Memory on paper, allows us to see connections more easily because we can now have a better overview.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if having access to information on paper, written by ourselves, lowers our cortisol levels, relieving stress, similar to powerposing. I for one don't feel safe about an appointment until I'm sure I've written it down in a calendar. If I'm readening an audio book I get stressed if I don't have a way to skip backward so I can write it down. Lectures are stressful situations because the lecturer is often crappy and doesn't repeat anything.

 

There's also ego-depletion. We have a mental energy pool which gets used up throughout the day, especially when making choices, actually thinking about stuff, learning stuff, situations where time goes slowly (like being a dude and being in a women's clothing store waiting for a certain female). Not juggling information in the brain may lower the amount of ego being depleted.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion Ego depletion in this article on wikipedia explains the depletion of willpower or discipline but D. Kahneman sometimes refers to a different (maybe the same) energy the brain has. This energy gets replenished during sleep when the brain has had time to consolidate stuff. It may also point to the productivity of various geniuses in history who took frequent powernaps. Naps replenished their energy, they were able to focus their energy, deplete it on meaningful stuff and not get too much stress hormone stuff.

 

I may be wrong on all of my assumptions and very likely am. Still, it is interesting to consider the possibilities.

 

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/22/0956797614524581.abstract In this study is shown that students who take notes on a laptop actually learn less than those who take handwritten notes. The researches postulate that more cognitive process are used to rephrase and write. I myself can attest to that. I can take digital notes with the keyboard and then an hour later look at the notes and wonder who wrote them. It is as if the information goes from the ears to the fingers into the keyboard. When handwriting I can do lines and arrows n stuff, works better, might be it. But I do remember better what I wrote. Might be confirmation bias.

I don't thinkt he article points out that it actually is the use of more cognitive processes. It might be another reason. Distrust for digital notes maybe. Cortisol again? http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v394/n6695/full/394787a0.html and another article I don't have a link for (can't find it quickly) suggest that cortisol or better, prolonged exposure to cortisol actually damages the brain, making long term memory retrieval harder and impairing learning ability.

 

Consider the ramifications of this. Especially in circumstances of grief, bullying, racism, bad long term relationships, exposure to obsessive people etc. These are long term exposures to stressful situations. Being exposed to dumb/bad people/situations may actually make you dumber! Journaling, writing, etc, could in fact lower the effect. Meditation, above all, would be a great counteracting action to do.

 

SCIENCE!!!!

 

(Ima investigate this more, maybe I should go back to college and be a neurologist)

[Paddler]

But . . . but . . . what if we have arranged our lives so that we don't have any emotional upheavals to write about? We are doomed, then. Oh, the gloom, despair, and agony!

 

[LionRoar]

Slightly off topic, since it doesn't mention fountain pen, or even writing by hand.

 

But I thought interesting none the less. Maybe a comment about regular journaling.

 

http://mic.com/articles/98348/science-shows-writers-have-a-serious-advantage-over-the-rest-of-us

 

 

 

 

.

 

Clearly about writing in general (like with a computer) and not specifically about writing by hand, or with a fountain pen.

Edited December 19, 2014 by LionRoar

[rwilsonedn]

But . . . but . . . what if we have arranged our lives so that we don't have any emotional upheavals to write about? We are doomed, then. Oh, the gloom, despair, and agony!

 

There you go ... an emotional upheaval just when you needed one!

ron

[AZBennett]

Personally I have had DRAMATIC benefits from writing. One of the earliest forms of therapy prescribed for my PTSD was journaling. Before the military started doing intensive treatments through counseling, group therapy, biofeedback, etc, mental health workers would ask us to journal in any form. I had always loved to write but writing took on a different. Also looking back at many poets and writers they were frequently plagued by mental health issues that today would warrant serious therapy. Personally medication has never helped me as much as writing has. I value that aspect of creation as a means of therapy more than any other method I have come across.

 

Paul

[Sailor Kenshin]

I'm not a psychologist or neurologist.

 

I've been reading up on a lot of stuff lately and there may be a connection here. There is research on power posing that shows that testosterone levels increase and cortisol levels decrease when taking on a power pose. Taking on a weak pose does the opposite. Testosterone raises confidence while cortisol increases stress. http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/9547823/13-027.pdf?sequence=1 I didn't read it in this source but this seems to be discussing it.

 

I've read about how the mind isn't capable of juggling much at once. I can't find where I learned about it. There was a connection between learning something without taking notes and learning while taking notes. Reviewing notes, etc. Because we can only maintain so much in our Random Access Memory, having stuff in Read Only Memory on paper, allows us to see connections more easily because we can now have a better overview.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if having access to information on paper, written by ourselves, lowers our cortisol levels, relieving stress, similar to powerposing. I for one don't feel safe about an appointment until I'm sure I've written it down in a calendar. If I'm readening an audio book I get stressed if I don't have a way to skip backward so I can write it down. Lectures are stressful situations because the lecturer is often crappy and doesn't repeat anything.

 

There's also ego-depletion. We have a mental energy pool which gets used up throughout the day, especially when making choices, actually thinking about stuff, learning stuff, situations where time goes slowly (like being a dude and being in a women's clothing store waiting for a certain female). Not juggling information in the brain may lower the amount of ego being depleted.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion Ego depletion in this article on wikipedia explains the depletion of willpower or discipline but D. Kahneman sometimes refers to a different (maybe the same) energy the brain has. This energy gets replenished during sleep when the brain has had time to consolidate stuff. It may also point to the productivity of various geniuses in history who took frequent powernaps. Naps replenished their energy, they were able to focus their energy, deplete it on meaningful stuff and not get too much stress hormone stuff.

 

I may be wrong on all of my assumptions and very likely am. Still, it is interesting to consider the possibilities.

 

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/22/0956797614524581.abstract In this study is shown that students who take notes on a laptop actually learn less than those who take handwritten notes. The researches postulate that more cognitive process are used to rephrase and write. I myself can attest to that. I can take digital notes with the keyboard and then an hour later look at the notes and wonder who wrote them. It is as if the information goes from the ears to the fingers into the keyboard. When handwriting I can do lines and arrows n stuff, works better, might be it. But I do remember better what I wrote. Might be confirmation bias.

I don't thinkt he article points out that it actually is the use of more cognitive processes. It might be another reason. Distrust for digital notes maybe. Cortisol again? http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v394/n6695/full/394787a0.html and another article I don't have a link for (can't find it quickly) suggest that cortisol or better, prolonged exposure to cortisol actually damages the brain, making long term memory retrieval harder and impairing learning ability.

 

Consider the ramifications of this. Especially in circumstances of grief, bullying, racism, bad long term relationships, exposure to obsessive people etc. These are long term exposures to stressful situations. Being exposed to dumb/bad people/situations may actually make you dumber! Journaling, writing, etc, could in fact lower the effect. Meditation, above all, would be a great counteracting action to do.

 

SCIENCE!!!!

 

(Ima investigate this more, maybe I should go back to college and be a neurologist)

What's powerposing, ehhhhh precioussssss?

[Ted A]

I tried to hold my pen the way it's held in that picture and my stress level went way up.

[deepak23]

I tried to hold my pen the way it's held in that picture and my stress level went way up.

+1...

How can someone write with a grip like that!? Sure shot carpal tunnel in a few years!

[wimg]

Thank you all, I actually shared this on LinkedIn .

 

Warm regards, Wim

[stevesurf]

Slightly off topic, since it doesn't mention fountain pen, or even writing by hand.

 

But I thought interesting none the less. Maybe a comment about regular journaling.

 

http://mic.com/articles/98348/science-shows-writers-have-a-serious-advantage-over-the-rest-of-us

 

 

 

 

.

 

This is really interesting; many thanks for sharing. Maybe it's writing by catharsis; here is an interesting post:

 

 

There's a moment in Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warpwhere Jacob goes back in time and sees himself, two years younger, just after his father had moved away from home never to be seen again. Twelve-year-old Jacob is struck by how incredibly sad his younger self looks, and he wants to go reassure him that things will get better and that he has a lot to look forward to.

There was a lot of me in that scene. Even in the course of writing a wacky space adventure, I was still channeling myself into the novel. We all do, whether we're writing precisely about what we've gone through or not.

I think there is incredible power in revisiting the painful moments in our past and getting them onto paper, some way, somehow. When I was going through my divorce everyone under the sun encouraged me to keep a journal to get my thoughts out, and I resisted for the longest time. I was spending all of my free time writing Jacob Wonderbar, the last thing I wanted to do was write still more on top of that.

But when I finally took it up for a brief time I was struck by how powerful it is. There's just something about getting those thoughts out of your head and onto a piece of paper that clarifies, expels, soothes, and calms.

There's some science to this too. There are scientists out there who see some benefit in the painful bout of mind-spinning that can follow a traumatic event:

Andrews and Thomson see depression as a way of bolstering our feeble analytical skills, making it easier to pay continuous attention to a difficult dilemma. The downcast mood and activation of the VLPFC are part of a “coordinated system” that, Andrews and Thomson say, exists “for the specific purpose of effectively analyzing the complex life problem that triggered the depression.” If depression didn’t exist — if we didn’t react to stress and trauma with endless ruminations — then we would be less likely to solve our predicaments. Wisdom isn’t cheap, and we pay for it with pain.

[DonLeone]

What's powerposing, ehhhhh precioussssss?

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en

 

Basically posing in a powerful pose increases your testosterone levels and decreases cortisol levels. Powerful poses are when you make yourself wide, take up room, sit relaxed, stand up straight, shoulders back. Weak posing is making yourself small, hiding, taking up little room.

 

The way you pose or stand actually affects the chemical balance in your body. It's really interesting stuff.

 

Similarly, for example, if you make a lot of choices or if you act in a prosocial manner or people treat you bad, your glucose levels drop because your pre-frontal cortex is burning up glucose in order to do those mental activities or deal with this mental stress. This means that willpower or discipline is not a skill but merely a fuel tank filled with glucose, powering the pre-frontal cortex.

 

So when someone tells you you lack discipline, tell them you haven't had lunch yet.

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00001.x/abstract

[Black Spot]

I read a study about how all artists are crazy and the Writers are the craziest of the lot.

But I don't mind any more. now I'm of to stare at my typewriter.

[Algester]

I dont get it... it says writers also enjoy LBP I like to write but I have HBP... well ok I got through 2 strokes but still...

[Arkanabar]

@Paul -- some of the stuff coming out about PTSD tells us WHY journaling is so important. In many cases, the part of the brain that tells us "that was then, this is now" shut down. So too can the part that helps us form words. Journaling will activate those areas.

[Sailor Kenshin]

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en

 

Basically posing in a powerful pose increases your testosterone levels and decreases cortisol levels. Powerful poses are when you make yourself wide, take up room, sit relaxed, stand up straight, shoulders back. Weak posing is making yourself small, hiding, taking up little room.

 

The way you pose or stand actually affects the chemical balance in your body. It's really interesting stuff.

 

Similarly, for example, if you make a lot of choices or if you act in a prosocial manner or people treat you bad, your glucose levels drop because your pre-frontal cortex is burning up glucose in order to do those mental activities or deal with this mental stress. This means that willpower or discipline is not a skill but merely a fuel tank filled with glucose, powering the pre-frontal cortex.

 

So when someone tells you you lack discipline, tell them you haven't had lunch yet.

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00001.x/abstract

Thanks.

 

Is there a female equivalent?