Everything You Know About Journaling Is Wrong

A lot of people have a concept of journaling as something kind of lame, only suitable for crying over a lost love or cataloging the most recent insults offered by the world. But any writing down of thoughts and plans could technically be called journaling. And it really doesn’t matter if you tear up the paper when you’re done, or burn it, or lock it in a safe for some day when you write your memoir. The point right now is to look at journaling in light of the concepts embodied by BrainWeighve. As the app says, the excess brain energy that leads to behavior like overeating can be used for better purposes (see illustration):

The good news is that you can control your displacement mechanism, and your overeating will stop.

A winning strategy can be to rechannel that energy into other purposes, as many as you please, and journaling might as well be one of them. Deliberately redirect the overflow energy into developing the hand-brain connection through, for instance, journaling.

Incidentally, when the communication system between hand and brain is purposefully cultivated, the benefit just might overflow into other activities. For instance, for any musician, from violinist to drummer, that connection needs to be in tip-top condition. Your brain can know every note of a concerto, but it’s your fingers that have to hit the right strings. Your brain can devise the most intoxicating rhythm ever, and it’s a total waste if the fingers and hands can’t pick up the message and convey it to the listeners’ ears.

Your brain wants to work for your benefit

The point is, the hand has a direct line to the brain, and it runs both ways. When you write about how difficult it is to not grab everything on the buffet table, a message goes to the subconscious: “Take this seriously.” Later, when you’re at the actual event, the brain returns the favor by messaging, “Put that hand back in your pocket and keep walking.”

So now, you have the content to fill out one of the problem/solution portions of the BrainWeighve app. You can catalog it there for your own sake, a private plan, for the next time you’re in trouble. When you feel confident in a workable idea, you might at some point decide to share it with others in the same troubling situation. This 12-minute video also says some things about how to make decisions, and how to identify and shake off useless old beliefs. (Quite often those two are closely related.)

In another medium, certified hypnotherapist Laura Irwin wrote,

Journaling came into my life at a crossroads when I realized I was out of touch with many of my emotions and shoved them down to focus on the problem to be analyzed, but emotions are more complex than that. Journaling became a window into my inner life; a profound tool for self awareness. When you access and utilize the power of your subconscious, your subconscious mind and your conscious mind are in sync and begin working together to achieve a common goal.

Irwin outlines six different journaling techniques. One is to begin with sentence fragments which you go on to complete, such as “If I weren’t afraid, I would…” or “Eating healthier would be easier if…” Another is doodling, in specific ways and with a specific purpose. Taking a close, conscious look at your dreams is another. She also describes several different ways to initiate and conduct a dialogue with oneself, and sums up by listing the many benefits of journaling.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “How to Reprogram Your Subconscious Through Journaling,” YouTube, 2020
Source: “6 Subconscious Journaling Techniques,” InspiredMeditations.com, 09/21/20

Teen People — Parallel Tracks Make a Smoother Ride

BrainWeighve has something in common with other effective programs. Additional techniques can be used along with the app’s suggestions, to strengthen and reinforce your intention. Childhood Obesity News has mentioned writing (or printing) by hand, and there is still more to consider about that.

Did you ever run into a problem, an obstacle between you and the goal you wanted or needed to complete? And then you switched frequencies, and did something completely different for a while, and put your mind on other things, and all of a sudden the answer just popped into your head?

Sometimes, all your brain needs is time to process the data in peace, and it will present you with a clear and workable solution. If you lost an important object, the subconscious might give you a dream that shows where the thing is. Your subconscious mind can be a powerful ally, and a lot of the time it is just hanging around waiting to be of service as your efficient intern. (Internal…. intern….. ha ha!)

Brain — listen up!

Apparently, it is possible to amp up that process by sending your inner self some clues about which parts of a crowded life really matter the most. Take the lost wallet, for instance. Sit yourself down and write or print, “I will find my wallet” 30 or 50 times. As we have seen, the hand and brain share a unique connection, and handwriting (or printing, or maybe even doodling) is a splendid way to let the subconscious know that you expect something from it.

The illustration on this page shows two of the places where collaboration between hand and brain and BrainWeighve can be useful. These are exactly the kinds of thoughts that “writing a letter to your brain” could help that gray blob to understand that you mean business. All day long, stuff flows in through the eyes and goes out through the thumbs pushing buttons. But when information comes in by an unusual method, like forming letters on paper with a pencil or pen — well, then the brain has to sit up and take notice.

More ways to enhance the BrainWeighve experience

Another way to create change, which is particularly useful to athletes, is “mental rehearsal.” In the eating realm, such rehearsals could consist of practicing, inside our own heads, various ways of saying no to the people in our lives. We can visualize being shown to a buffet table and saying, “It all looks great. Maybe later.” Or just, “No, thank you.” Try taking a walk alone and saying, “No, thank you,” in a pleasant but firm way, about a thousand times. At some point, it will just roll off the tongue.

Dr. Akshad Singi recommends micro-visualizing: In the evening, he uses a time calendar to set up the day’s schedule, and then in the morning, he visualizes it:

I’ll start writing an article at 7:30 AM. Then, I’ll get dressed up and reach the medicine outpatient department by 9:30 AM. After my duty is over, I’ll have lunch at 2 PM, followed by a nap at 3 PM. Then, I’ll go to the gym at 4…

Granted, this sounds unspeakably boring. Still, it may be worth trying, in preparation for a major athletic event, or when the crazy time comes of doing every possible thing to get into your chosen institution of higher learning. Or to back up your weight loss resolutions.

Bottom line: There are techniques that, used in conjunction with BrainWeighve, can supercharge the experience. You may have heard the expression, “Different strokes for different folks.” Different jokes, different cloaks, different pokes… Not everything works for everybody, so keep poking around until you find something that works for you, and ride it ’til the wheels fall off!

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “4 Unsexy One-Minute Habits That Save Me 30+ Hours Every Week,” BetterHumans.pub, 09/19/22

Use Your Brain to Save Your Body — 3

If you could gain a superpower like invisibility or seeing the future, would you take it and use it? Okay, this power isn’t quite as impressive, but it can really make a difference. It is obvious that the hand-brain alliance can be a powerful force in helping us train our brains to give up their old, obesity-enabling ways and jump to a new track.

Example: A group of non-Greek children were asked to learn letters of the Greek alphabet. Some printed the strange symbols by hand; some used keyboards. Later, they were asked if they had ever seen the letters before, and the hand-printing kids remembered a lot more than the typing kids. Reporters Daniel J. Plebanek and Karin H. James discovered,

[T]he brain learns letters that are written by hand much more quickly than those that are typed. It does not matter how you write — printing, cursive, abbreviations, it just matters that you write by hand.

Other research has shown that college students more thoroughly remember what the prof said if they take class notes by hand, instead of typing them.

You are the boss of it

Dr. Nicole LePera encourages changing the subconscious mind, which holds stubborn ideas about how to run your life. “Autopilot is gonna do what autopilot has always done.” Unless, of course, the brain’s owner takes it in hand and tells it what’s what. The subconscious mind is very impressionable, and rather than let it be impressed with every stray idea that we hear all day long, we can control that process and impress our minds with content that does us some good, instead.

One way to do this is through journaling, in the morning if possible, because it sets up expectations — no, more than that, it sets up intentions — for how the day will go. If you don’t know what to say, start with, “I am grateful for…” Or mention three personality traits you would like to develop. Practice putting energy into cultivating the hand-brain connection. Just as test-taking is “a skill that you can learn” (see illustration), thinking about your issues is also a learnable skill. Handwriting or printing about issues makes the brain sit up and take notice.

The depths of us

The conscious mind can usually tell the difference between what’s real and what you imagine. The subconscious operates differently. This often works against you, but it can be made to work for you instead. You can tell your brain that you’re not someone who snacks between meals, and after a while, it just might actually get busy carving new neural pathways. As the Compartmentalize screen says, “Your brain unconsciously works on the problem in the background…”

In other words, you can train your gray matter to create a “new normal” for yourself. Of course, no one instantly, automatically becomes a different person. It takes some patience, and repetitive, consistent effort. Part of that effort could include using previously established techniques along with the BrainWeighve app’s suggestions.

The hand and the brain were developed by evolution to work together, so we need to take advantage of that partnership. In this specific case, the suggestion is being made to combine the power of the hand-brain connection with the potential of the BrainWeighve phone application, because writing out your thoughts before entering them into your device could make a meaningful difference to how well everything turns out.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Why Handwriting is Good for Your Brain,” FrontiersIn.org, 04/06/22
Source: “How to Reprogram Your Subconscious Through Journaling,” YouTube, 2020

Use Your Brain to Save Your Body, 2

Author William Klemm, Ph.D., says:

There is a whole field of research known as “haptics,” which includes the interactions of touch, hand movements, and brain function. Cursive writing helps train the brain to integrate visual, and tactile information, and fine motor dexterity.

When learning cursive writing,

[T]he brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of brain become co-activated during the learning of cursive writing… as opposed to typing or just visual practice.

In one research program, five-year-olds who had never done anything like this before were divided into groups that received different kinds of instruction on how to form letters. Dr. Klemm wrote,

In children who had practiced self-generated printing by hand, the neural activity was far more enhanced and “adult-like” than in those who had simply looked at letters. The brain’s “reading circuit” of linked regions that are activated during reading was activated during hand writing, but not during typing.

Whether in handwriting or printing, the brain has to do certain tasks that are simply not required when using a computer keyboard, and it turns out that those skills apply to more than just writing.

Many discoveries have been made over the past years. For Forbes.com, Nancy Olson reported…

Handwriting increases neural activity in certain sections of the brain… the mere action of writing by hand unleashes creativity not easily accessed in any other way… Handwriting sharpens the brain and helps us learn… Apparently sequential hand movements, like those used in handwriting, activate large regions of the brain responsible for thinking, language, healing and working memory.

Olson interviewed neuroscientist Dr. Claudia Aguirre, who said,

Writing by hand is a powerful tool for learning, relaxation, creativity and connection…

What does this have to do with BrainWeighve? Everything. Because, what is the app for? To help us learn about ourselves. To help us relax, and not be stressed out over problems and challenges. To inspire creativity in the ways we handle these problems and challenges. To connect us with the strong and capable parts of ourselves. To heal the psychological bruises that lead us into destructive relationships with food.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Why Writing by Hand Could Make You Smarter,” SolarisPediatricTherapy.com, undated
Source: “Three Ways That Handwriting With A Pen Positively Affects Your Brain,” Forbes.com, 05/15/16
Image by Mandie S/CC BY 2.0

Use Your Brain to Save Your Body

To get the benefit from BrainWeighve, participants are invited to record their answers to a number of questions. It sounds like a test, but there is a major difference: here, you are the final authority, the only one who knows the answers. Today, anyway. But the point is, pretty soon you will come up with some new and more workable answers.

The process is a lot like a therapeutic tool we have already mentioned, journaling. Certain forms of journaling involve a person asking herself or himself questions, and answering them. This can be a very personal experience, which is just one reason why using your hand to write your responses first is probably a good idea. If you think about it for a couple of days and then decide to share your observations, it might take away any anxiety about “going public.”

For example

Take the Problem Solving screen (top of this page.) The first bullet point says, “Write down everything you know about the problem. Then write what you might do about it.” This is very much what journaling is about in many cases, which is why we point out the similarities. In today’s post, the subject is why it might be very advantageous to do this stuff by hand, at least for the first go. The hand and the brain want to work together.

Another screen asks about “rescue” plans, which you either have tried or will try. Maybe you are determined not to put on any pounds over the holidays, but feel you are being coerced into eating another helping of candied yams. How will you get out of this sticky situation? Or maybe you already went ahead and ate them. The prompt asks, “What will you do for damage control?” If you overate, “what was the main thing that was bothering you?” And when something like this happens again, what is your move?

Proven to work

The matters being pondered here are exactly what journaling is designed to deal with. For hundreds of years, people have written down their thoughts about the challenges of life, and they keep doing it because it gets results. Sometimes, the whole mess makes more sense to a person who takes the time to sit down first with pen and paper, undistracted by the presence of a phone.

No rule says you have to feed your thoughts into the private section of the app right away. And when you do, no rule says you have to share those thoughts with others, either. You still have the option of sharing them at any time, with the hope that it might help someone else fight their demons. And others have already opted to share their hints and strategies with you, which is why the link to “I need ideas” appears on that screen three times.

A fair question

Now, where do we get these high-and-mighty ideas about the power of writing thoughts by hand? First, let’s clear up one thing. That can mean printing, too. Although cursive handwriting works a little better for this kind of task, printing works too — and far, far more effectively than typing the letters. Who says?

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!