The easy way to boost your brain power

Step away from the keyboard and pick up a pen. That’s the latest expert advice for anyone who wants to study and remember more effectively.

We learn better when writing by hand than when we type, according to Anne Mangen, associate professor at the University of Stavanger in Norway, and neurophysiologist Jean-Luc Velay.

Senses working overtime

This is partly, according to Mangen, an effect of the senses. The physical act of forming letters with a writing implement sends more varied feedback to the brain – from the feel of the pen and paper to the motor function of shaping the words letter by letter – than pressing identical keys to produce fully formed letters in one go.

Indeed, research led by Velay shows that writing by hand leaves a motor memory in a part of the brain that links to visual recognition: the sensorimotor system.

In safe hands

On this point, Mangen refers to an experiment in which two groups of adults were tasked with learning a foreign alphabet. One group learned the symbols using a keyboard, the other by writing them out. When they were tested at three and six weeks into the experiment on their ability to recollect the letters and to recognise when the characters had been reversed, those who’d been writing by hand outperformed the keyboard-users every time.

The nature of business in the modern office may have made us all secretly proud of our words-per-minute scores, but if we want to remember what we’re writing, this speed is not our friend. Call it obvious, but the simple fact that writing by hand takes that bit longer also influences the learning process.

Hardened technophiles may scoff and instead try typing in slow motion as they attempt to learn Mandarin or memorise the periodic table, but they still won’t be stimulating the right part of the brain. ‘The sensorimotor component forms an integral part of training for beginners,’ says Mangen.