How Handwriting Improves Your Intelligence

I'd like to begin this blog with a question for you to consider please. How much time to you spend on handwriting these days? Taking a pen and paper and crafting your unique hand on the page? Do you write letters anymore or perhaps commit your daily thoughts to the pages of a diary or journal? Do you write a shopping list, write dates on a calendar or keep a paper appointment diary?

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I recall my school days when everything was written by hand. We spent repetitious hours learning how to form the letters and later how to join them up into beautifully crafted words. All my examinations over the years have been handwritten, I even used the same pen from the time of taking 'O' Levels right up to present day, a treasured gift from my Brother. My daily life is a very different experience, I'm guessing the same is true for you? I make contact with customers, colleagues and friends by tapping on a keyboard or screen. The same is true for producing this blog so that it can be viewed by many. The handwritten language of my day is minimal, confined to scribbled notes and reminders and that's something.

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On the first day of our Enhanced NLP Coach Practitioner Certification Training, we place a focus on goal creation. In NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), we love language and handle it with care. When I train my participants how to write goals in a ground-breaking and specific way, they are often surprised that I mean for them to actually write them, with a pen and paper. Some participants, sitting with their laptops open in front of them, look at me like I've just asked them to plunge themselves into a crocodile infested river!

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Why is handwriting so important and why should we be taking the time to do more of it? The answer is simple, handwriting improves your intellect.

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Broca's area, located in the left hemisphere of the brain, is the portion of your internal biocomputer that is associated with speech production and articulation. Our ability to articulate ideas, as well as use words accurately in spoken and written language, has been attributed to this crucial area. Handwriting is a mental exercise that constantly stimulates the development of neural connections and contributes to self-regulation, self-discipline, will and perseverance. Neuroscience has shown that handwriting contributes to brain expansion and boosts intelligence.

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The good news is that even scribbling a quick note to yourself is a complex voluntary procedure, engaging the co-operation of all lobes of your cerebral cortex with other regions of your brain including the limbic system, the hippocampus, the brain stem, the cerebellum and finally the spinal cord, which sends impulses to your hands and fingers. Each time you reach for a pen and begin to write, your neurology lights up and your brain is kicked into action.  

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Currently, new technological advances have, little by little, banished manual writing into the background of our lives. It's time to rediscover the joy of handwriting. Handwriting is an excellent cognitive exercise that helps boost your intelligence and cognitive functions.

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Writing requires the use of all brain structures working in a joint and coordinated manner, structures associated with thought, language and memory. To boost your intelligence and keep your neurology firing, go back to the power of the pen, at least one each day!

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