Are you afraid of fruits because they are high in carbs? Have you been led to believe that you should avoid them and instead focus on fats and protein? Allow us to give you more information on the value of carbs and how to choose them wisely so you can make informed decisions about your health!

Are days going by super-fast and you feel “time” is not enough? Are you feeling stressed due to the number of demanding tasks on your plate? Do you wake up in the middle of the night haunted by your thoughts and all the things you must do? Do you get upset with yourself because you forgot an event, an appointment, or a deadline? Well, I do.  All these questions talk to me, but if you feel somewhat related as well, here goes a strategy that might help you with “all of the above”. It helps me and many of our clients, and that is: take pen and paper and start writing. Writing (by using certain tools we will describe below) is one of our preferred “health” practices, and once a habit, it may be the heart of productivity and positive work-life balance. Simple as it may sound, the act of handwriting delivers immediate cognitive, emotional, and intellectual benefits to your brain not yet replaced by electronic devices. The key is, how to introduce a consistent handwriting practice that will take little time while rendering immediate benefits to your health (mostly mental health), and allow your brain to ruminate less, focus more and disconnect effectively when needed. What happens when we hand-write on paper? Handwriting uses more brain power. If we don't challenge our brain, it can't reach its full potential. And that can impact our productivity and our performance (at any age). A 2020 study conducted by the University of Norway looked at brain activity in both adults and children, concluding that the brain is much more active when writing by hand than when typing on a keyboard. “The use of pen and paper gives the brain more ‘hooks’ to hang your memories on. Writing by hand creates much more activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain. A lot of senses are activated by pressing the pen on paper, seeing the letters you write and hearing the sound you make while writing. These sensory experiences create contact between different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning. We both learn better and remember better,” says Audrey van der Meer, the leader of this study. Typing on a keyboard or using an electronic device, is indeed faster than handwriting, but it reduces the activity of the brain and sets you on auto-pilot mode. Speed and activity switching (this is called network switching) slows down the brain’s ability to focus and concentrate. Devices and electronics add the perk of pushing notifications and permanent distractions to the process of writing, whereas paper will remain silent while you write, allowing the brain to fully dive into the task or the content at hand. Handwriting is a slower process in which the brain is allowed to think, concentrate, pay attention, draw deeper connections, and retain information better. So, less forgetting about important things! Regardless of your handwriting abilities, pen on paper allows for more freedom as more areas of the brain are in use. By creating multiple connections, new mental pathways start to occur, opening the space for creativity (or new ways of solving problems or looking at things). Creativity may, in some cases, be expressed in the form of art (drawings, maps, lines, shapes and colours), or the form of solutions. Again, the speed at which we handwrite or draw allows us to visualize the content interpreted on paper and awareness. In this digital age where all the information we use is within a device (phone numbers, addresses, text messages, emails, documents, resources, calendars, shopping lists …… well everything) what can we do? Here are three practices that if done using handwriting, will allow you to use more of your brain, and help you improve your performance, productivity, and overall health. Closing routine . If you have been to any of our workshops or have been our client, you will know by now that the Closing Routine is one of our preferred practices because it always succeeds in helping our clients reduce stress, sleep better, find more time in their day, and become more productive. The Closing Routine is a space of your day where you intentionally “close the business”. How does it work? Pick a time. This may be the end of your workday or the end of your day. Be consistent. Look at your emails and other e-communications (not social media), draft responses that will be scheduled for the next day, and mark unread those messages you were not able to acknowledge. Check your daily activities, and to-do lists, and cross out the ones which have been completed. Check your calendar for the next day and week. Plan for all the unfinished tasks, determine a date to resume and break them down into parts if needed, but make sure your write how and when you will address or complete “unfinished business”. This may be the most important part of your closing routine and is the one part that should be done with “pen and paper”. Let’s explain why. Haven’t you noticed how unfinished tasks tend to haunt you at 3:00 am not allowing your brain to rest? Or how unfinished work raises our stress level? It is never the things we have completed that call for our attention or create stress. Well, this has a name, and it is called The Zeigarnik Effect “the ability of incomplete tasks to dominate our attention”. The Closing Routine allows you to plan for unfinished work; it is not a space to finish the tasks but to think, create and write down on paper how you will take care of them in the future. For example, if your brain knows you must do your finances, or finish a work presentation, it will not rest until it knows there is a concrete plan. Again, the Closing Routine is not for doing your finances, but to plan when you have a 2-hour window to go over your accounts, credit cards, and other financials. As soon as the brain knows there is a precise plan and a deadline, it will be able to release the attention given to unfinished tasks. Keep a notepad or an agenda handy to write during your closing routine. You may find some “time” you did know you had or even unexpected solutions to deferred problems or tasks. I like to do my Closing Routine after dinner and before winding down for bed. MV prefers to take 15 minutes at the end of her workday. What we can guarantee is that a few days after practicing a Closing Routine with some writing included, you will sleep better, eat better, feel less fatigued and stressed and most likely, become more productive. Opening routine . The reason why we always start by describing how to implement a closing routine is that it sets the stage for the opening routine. If you want to choose one of these practices to start with, we suggest you begin by implementing the end-of-day closing routine. The opening routine is a very short practice that allows you to start your day proactively. It is not your “morning routine”, but it can very well be a part of it. Take your hand-written notes from your last night’s closing routine and plan your day. Write down the top three things you must complete or continue working on before the end of today. Chose three and break them down into clear actions. Write these three tasks on paper, and make sure you start the statement with a verb. For example, if I need to finish a work presentation, I will write exactly what I need to do: “Complete all slides for the presentation and review it with the written outline or document, save it in PDF it in X folder.” As we have learned, writing will allow your brain to process more information. While you are writing your top three tasks for the day, your brain is making connections and associations that will allow you to find solutions before even starting the job. It is very different to write the word “presentation” as a task on your e-calendar than to spend about one minute (it will not be more than a minute) drafting on paper the activity you need to complete. Additionally, when you write something down, you’re more likely to remember it, you’re more likely to keep it top of mind and able to know what to do to fulfill the task. Hasn’t it happened to you (it happens to me a lot) that we fear facing some tasks we believe are time-consuming and complex, and we keep delaying or deferring them? As days go by, stress starts to accumulate without a doubt. Taking a minute to write down on paper what you are required to do, allows your brain to break it down into smaller tasks and get started. Once you get started, the fear is gone, and the stress level is diminished. It is like magic. Try it, I am sure this will help you as well. There is enough evidence suggesting that the way you start your day most of the time determines the energy by which the rest of your day rolls out. So, an opening routine which includes writing your main priorities and checking your calendar before facing the world, reacting to your inbox or diving into social media will have a positive impact on your productivity, and therefore make you feel better. Journaling. As you may see, we are advocates of old-school pen and paper, aware of the difference it makes in productivity and stress management. We like to call this practice “writing”, just writing, but the word out there is Journaling. That is ok. Here is our take on it, again, simple, and easy to start implementing if your focus is to increase your productivity, reduce stress or burnout and boost your overall health: Process your emotions, experiences, ideas, and thoughts from the perspective of the things that are under your control, from the place of action. Ask yourself these questions, is this in my hands? Do I have an impact or an influence on this? What can I do? What is my part? How can I be at service? If you want these notes to be even more powerful, make them part of a hand-written letter and send it to someone you like, via regular mail. Receiving a hand-written note or letter has an immense impact on someone else’s life (please share your experience if you decide to start writing and sending hand written short letters). You are now aware of the powerhouse your brain is when engaged in handwriting: your senses and your body are engaged and active. Use this practice to help you find solutions and process experiences, be it by getting started with a closing routine or empowering an opening ritual before you kick-start your day. Add some random pages, here and there, but remember to focus on the things you can control! Cheers, Rosana