Why Write? The Cognitive Benefits of Writing

Your brain is commonly said to be the most complex thing in the universe. It’s very high-tech and holds within it immense resources. It stores everything you’ve read, watched, listened to, or experienced — in some form or another.

With such sophisticated hardware and unlimited information resources at our fingertips, you’d think we’d all have material success and mental harmony. Looking around — and perhaps at your own experience — it is evidently not so.

There are likely several reasons why most people fail to leverage their brain’s capabilities. We won’t get into all of them, but highlight one of significance: we have a major processing problem.

Leverage Your Mind

Thinking is hard. And we generally make it harder when we force our brain to do too much, too fast. We rapidly deplete its RAM. It has to juggle and work parallel lines — always at the mercy of a new thought entering your head.

From the title, you may have guessed the remedy I’m suggesting.

Writing takes advantage of a quirk with your perception: you are much better at handling information when it’s outside your skull.

Putting your thoughts down on paper might just be the biggest cognitive upgrade you make. You can take my word for it, or…