How Doodling Keeps Your Brain Focused
If you love to doodle and sketch while you think, you may have been told over the years to stop reaching for your pencils and pay attention. In reality, science shows that doodling can help you focus more than leaving your hands and mind idle. Here are some ways doodling can help sharpen your mind and focus.
Clarify Your Memories
Far from zoning out and not paying attention, research shows that doodling sparks action in the brain. Harvard Health Publishing found that doodling could help you find lost puzzle pieces to memories, bring them to the present, and understand the whole picture on a deeper level. That feeling of understanding could also help you unwind and feel the burden lifted from something you've been struggling to process.
Relieve Stress
Chronic doodlers will share that sketching and drawing helps them relieve stress and retain better focus. You're likely to disrupt maladaptive thoughts that keep circulating in the loop and causing distress. Doodling keeps your focus on something calming and breaks up those racing thoughts. Your nervous energy also finds an outlet with the physical act of doodling and further relieves stress and distractions.
Rediscover Some Enjoyment
Creative hobbies like doodling can help enhance your problem-solving skills and make you more productive at the same time. Make the most of your creative outlet by investing in a few fun supplies.
Our sketchy journals are perfect for doodling, sketching, and journaling. Turn it into a scrapbook, or enjoy adding color and flair. They're also made from hand-stitched handmade paper notebooks.
Retain More Information
Do you have a hard time processing everything in a short period of time and forgetting the details? Doodling could be the answer if you're having difficulty remembering valuable information in meetings. Doodling seems to help people concentrate and work through info, no matter how dry it may be. Studies show that people who doodled while listening to a long, dull voice mail reclaimed 29% more information than those who simply listened!
Avoid Zoning Out
Wandering minds may be normal but can cause issues when you're responsible for retaining and applying information at work. Zoning out on long calls and meetings is inevitable for most of us. Instead of obsessing over what you're drawing, doodling helps you pay attention to what's happening around you, like a meeting or lecture.
Access Subconscious Thought
Are you having trouble figuring out what's bothering you and can't focus because of it? Some medical professionals use doodling as a way to unlock subconscious thought and access your mental state, personality, attention span, and learning abilities. Taking the time to doodle and relax could conjure up sketches of your anxiety or serve to relieve your stress altogether.
Turn Doodling Into Something Productive
Because doodling helps you relax and focus, it can also help keep you productive. However, there are other ways to turn doodling into a more meaningful experience. If you enjoy the act of drawing, hone your skills and use them as a way to better communicate your projects and ideas to colleagues, family, and friends.
Exercise Respectful Doodling
Although doodling can help you focus, de-stress, and get clarity, not everyone is aware of its benefits. It's worth telling your colleagues or family that it enables you to listen and zero in so they don't think you're growing bored with their conversation.
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