Theta Rhythms

I received a beautiful journal recently and discovered a strange phenomenon. I was woefully out of practice with a pen.

When I opened to a blank page and suddenly found myself trying to write out a favorite paragraph in cursive handwriting, after having typed everything for many years, I was a bit shocked. I felt as though my hands were learning for the first time; they felt awkward and so out of practice - having only to write my signature on documents most of the time. Once, I had been able to write in a calligraphic style without much thought. Now, I felt like I was in First Grade once again. The muscle memory had waned.

This rather disconcerting discovery made me want to return to my girlhood habit of copying quotes from my reading.

It has been so long since I have sat by a window with a wonderful pen and slowly copied out the particular words of another soul catching hold of my own. Going slowly had made me savor them. I had gotten out of this habit somewhere along the line and relied solely on yellow highlighters to set the quotes off. It is not the same. A written notebook tells you your train of inspiration over time as you leaf through it. The handwriting shows you the moods you might have been experiencing when writing - by its slant, its neatness or its hurried run on the page.

This isn't just frivolous fancy on my part. It is an actual truth. The human hand carefully writing out something that has struck us as beautiful is more 'of the earth' and better for waking up the brain than typing it quickly and efficiently on a keyboard. I felt this.

My husband sent me an intriguing article on why cursive handwriting is good for your brain. It mentioned that "data analysis showed that cursive handwriting primed the brain for learning by synchronizing brain waves in the “theta rhythm range” and stimulating more electrical activity in the brain's parietal lobe (the part that functions as the manager of integrating the sense perceptions we receive) and central regions....such oscillatory neuronal activity in these particular brain areas is important for memory and for the encoding of new information and, therefore, provides the brain with optimal conditions for learning."

I had never thought of the waves reaching different rhythms and thus synchronizing with one another like music. The theta rhythm range is classed as the area of slow activity. It is seen in connection with creativity, intuition, daydreaming, and fantasizing and is a repository for memories, emotions, sensations. Theta waves are strong during internal focus, meditation, prayer, and spiritual awareness.

Scientists who conducted brain studies of students who wrote exclusively in cursive for a given period of time discovered that they became more alert to what they were thinking and feeling. "When we use a pen and paper, we are giving the brain more 'hooks' to hang our 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 sense experiences create contact between different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning".

It is a beautiful concept that it takes all the senses to cooperate in writing down our thoughts on a page.

So, I decided to write out by hand all the things I meet in prayer or in my reading that jump out at me on the page. I am not sure how it will go. I wrote out my first page today: George Herbert's Love III. It felt awkward and crowded and uneven. But I did it. Hopefully, I might get my style back from years ago. It is worth a try to get the ole theta rhythms going!

Science is fascinating - sometimes as lovely as poetry - - sometimes.

Here’s to journals and pens and windows and beautiful words written down for remembrance! Long may the theta rhythms wave.

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