From Mind To Ink: How Handwriting Boosts Your Well-Being
Have you ever desperately searched for your keys or mobile phone until you discovered that you had it in your hands? Well, it is very common to look for things, answers or tools that are usually so close that we cannot see them. This is the case with being able to write by hand as a therapeutic technique.
It is interesting that countries like Canada in 2023 and some states in the United States in 2024 have reincorporated cursive writing into the curricula of their schools.. What is this about? The truth is that, whether cursive writing or not, handwriting has demonstrated a series of benefits for both cognitive functions and mental health.
In January 2024, the British Broadcasting Corporation publishes the obligation currently required in California to teach writing in cursive in schools, a practice that had been eradicated since 2010. “Writing in cursive can activate specific neural pathways that facilitate and optimize language learning and development in general” as explained by neuroscientist Claudia Aguirre (2024, British Broadcasting Corporation).
Karim James (2018), professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University, conducted a study showing that handwriting stimulates areas of the brain that remain inactive when writing using a keyboard, thus promoting the activation of different neural networks. involved in the process of learning letters.
Writing using computers, cell phones or other devices involves the same mechanical movement that is automated over time for the expression of different letters and punctuation marks, unlike handwriting which involves making different shapes, movements and organizing the space.
Writing by hand allows you to give greater depth to information by activating a series of complex cognitive functions that allow you to select, order and synthesize, strengthening memory and analysis capacity. The findings of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) allow us to conclude that when writing on computers or tablets there is a tendency to reproduce the information verbatim, ignoring the aforementioned processes and therefore making a more superficial integration..
Concrete benefits of handwriting
Specifically, the benefits of writing by hand are:
How to start?
You can write about:
I have heard it said “once you discover the power of writing there is no turning back.” Like any skill, it is a technique that improves with practice and also has solid scientific support.
