Are you right brained or left brained or whole brained? Do you have any idea what that even means?
As a blogger and writer, your success does not depend on upon the side of you brain you use most.
However, it’s possible that your ability to use both sides of your brain—even at the same time—will make you more creative and productive. That’s right…Use your whole brain to write and blog.
Stop Fixating on Right Brain vs. Left Brain Differences
Your brain has two hemispheres, and each serves your blogging, writing and creative endeavors differently.
If you aren’t familiar with the right brain vs. left brain principle, let me explain.
Let’s start with the right side of your brain. It focuses on visual stimuli and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, seeing the entire picture first and then the details.
On the other hand, the left brain focuses on verbal stimuli and processes information analytically and sequentially. First it sees the pieces and then combines them to produce the whole.
Each side of the brain comes into play for different activities. You naturally use one side of the brain more than the other, but you can strengthen the less dominant side of your brain and benefit from those newfound capacities.
Sometimes you also use your whole brain to accomplish an activity, and you can encourage both sides of the brain to play nicely together when it would be beneficial.
Try a Whole-Brain Approach to Blogging
You can, indeed, increase your success as a blogger and writer by harnessing all the strengths your mind possesses. In other words, use your whole brain in a deliberate manner.
Both sides of your brain work together. And you can help them do so more often—and reap the benefits.
While novelists might rely on the right brain—the creative center—more often to craft realistic characters, vibrant settings, and engaging dialogue., nonfiction writers might rely on their left brain—the language and analytical center—more often to analyze data, research topics, and present arguments and ideas clearly and concisely.
Most bloggers fall into the nonfiction writing genre. Therefore, you likely use your left brain more than your right brain. That’s doesn’t mean you aren’t creative, however. You are!
You call on the right side of your brain when you tell a story. And you use it when you imagine your reader and connect with their emotions as you write.
But keep this in mind: Creativity studies in neuroscience suggest that the right-brain/left-brain distinction offers an incomplete picture of how the mind implements creativity. Your ability to create does not involve one side of the brain to the exclusion of the other.
As I reported in Creative Visualization for Writers, “Numerous interacting conscious and unconscious cognitive processes, as well as emotions, get involved when you have an idea for an article, essay, blog post, or book and begin to write. Depending on where you are in the creative process and what you want to create, you might need to call on different regions of the brain for assistance.”
What does that mean? You can experience heightened states of creativity when you actively engage both sides of the brain—when you write, draw, visualize, feel, and analyze. “A more whole-brain approach to your work helps you generate—and realize—ideas,” I concluded in Creative Visualization for Writers.
How to Activate Both Sides of Your Brain—at the Same Time
Find ways to create opportunities to take a whole-brain approach to writing blog posts. For instance, you can:
Mind-map ideas—Mind mapping is both a logical and linear as well as a visual and creative task, thus, it uses both sides of the brain. It’s a great way to plan out a blog post or to get unstuck when you find yourself without direction mid post. Color or draw your ideas—Drawing or coloring takes your left brain idea and asks the right brain to depict it visually. You also can color—use an adult coloring book (or the pages in Creative Visualization for Writers—as you think about the blog post you are writing; in the process, you engage both sides of the brain.
Visualize your project—Consciously daydreaming about your blog post employs the right brain to work on a left brain issue.
Blog to Music—Studies prove that listening to music, in particular baroque music or Mozart—increases creativity and productivity. Try different types of music as you blog to see what works best for you, and, as you do, your whole brain will work with you.
If you would like to discover additional ways to develop a whole-brain approach to blogging, read Creative Visualization for Writers. It contains over 100 interactive exercises to help writers in general put their entire brain to use.
The more often you encourage both of your brains to work as you write, the stronger both sides of your brain become. In the process, your creativity and productivity will increase as well.
Images courtesy of geralt / Pixabay.com and Creative Visualization for Writers.
Leave a Reply