The Drawing Effect: How Doodling Can Improve Your Thinking, Memory, and Emotions

It is commonly said that “a picture is worth a thousand words” – and this might be more true than we realize, especially when it comes to our psychology.

According to a new study published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, drawing is an effective way of improving our thinking and memory above simply writing or taking notes.

The study found that drawing helped people remember lists of words (like “truck” or” pear”), as well as textbook definitions of scientific topics like (“isotope” and “spore”), better than when people just wrote down these words or definitions. This effect was shown to be particularly strong in those with dementia and memory problems.

Drawing can improve your thinking and memory over just simple writing by engaging the visual and motor parts of your brain. This leads to greater absorption of information and better retention. Psychologists are calling it the “drawing effect.”

In another study published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, researchers did 7 different “free recall” experiments, where participants were asked to try to remember 30 different words.

One group was asked to spend 40 seconds on each word writing it out over and over again (“rote learning”), while another group was given the same amount of time to doodle an image representing each word. They were then asked to do a completely irrelevant task, and afterwards were asked to recall as many of the words as possible from the previous study.

Again researchers discovered that individuals who were asked to draw the words remembered twice as many as those who were asked to simply write them out repetitively.

Best of all, the skill-level of each drawing had little impact on how well individuals memorized the words. Instead, it seems even people who aren’t good at drawing at all can receive benefits in learning and memory from drawing more.

These findings have many practical implications for how we can use drawing to improve our lives.

• Taking notes and studying – One great application of drawing is to doodle more when you’re taking notes in class or during a business meeting. This will help you engage with the material on a deeper level and absorb it better in the moment. You can create little icons, symbols, arrows, or figures to represent important pieces of information that you want to commit to memory, so it’s easier to recall in the future. One powerful symbol can communicate a world of information that sticks in your mind forever. This will also help when you go back to your notes to study for an exam or prepare for the next business meeting. You’ll see a simple drawing and be immediately reminded of what it represents.
• Making “to do” lists – Another benefit to drawing is to integrate it into your list-making, whether it’s a shopping list, grocery list, or a “to do” list for home or work. This will improve the power of your checklists by making it easier for you to scan the list and retain all of the items on it. It’ll also better prepare you to tackle these tasks later in the day because you already have parts of your visual/motor brain primed to activate. For example, when my friend had me watch his dogs for the week he drew little pictures next to each item, which helped out a lot. I could easily look at the drawings and be instantly reminded if I forgot to do something, without having to re-read the items on the list.
  

• Reflecting in new ways – While meditation and writing can be great tools for becoming more aware of your inner thoughts and feelings, drawing visual representations of your thoughts can also be a fantastic method for becoming more attuned to your inner world and expressing it. One helpful technique in art therapy is to spend time drawing how you feel, which can be a great way to express and release negative emotions by making them more tangible and changeable. One fascinating study shows how a novel technique known as “Avatar Therapy” can treat auditory hallucinations in those with schizophrenia by having them create a computerized visual of the “face” behind the voice and giving patients an opportunity to interact with it. Another creative exercise anyone can do is to first choose a negative emotion they’ve been struggling with (fear, anxiety, guilt, sadness, etc.), then find a way to express it through drawing or painting (or other visual media such as photography or film).
• Brainstorming and creativity – Drawing can also be an effective method to exercise your creative muscles in new ways, especially when it comes to visualizing specific problems and brainstorming new solutions. When we create visual representations for a problem (such as flow charts, diagrams, graphs, equations, maps, or illustrations) it can help us understand the problem in a new way and communicate these ideas better to other people, especially bosses, coworkers, teachers, or students. This can lead to new approaches and new perspectives rather than just trying to solve a problem by describing it in words or thinking about it inside our heads. This is also why a whiteboard can be a powerful tool during classes, business meetings, or group brainstorming sessions.
• Relaxation and stress relief – One of the simplest benefits to drawing and doodling is that it just feels good to be creative and take your mind off of things for a little while. Drawing for the sake of drawing can boost positive emotions and relieve stress. One new study finds that multiple types of visual art (coloring mandalas, doodling within or around a circle, or free drawing) activates the reward pathways in our brain. This is why “adult coloring books” have also become a popular way to relieve stress and anxiety. Simply putting on some good music and taking 30 minutes to be creative however you want can be a great way to refresh your mind, escape life’s everyday problems, and just relax and unwind.

These are all amazing ways that drawing can benefit our everyday lives and bring our mental health to the next level.

Keep in mind that you don’t need any artistic skills to reap these benefits, even just simple stick figures and “kindergarten drawing” are all it takes to begin engaging your mind on a more visual and creative level.

What are ways you can begin drawing more to benefit your life? Get a sketch pad today and start doodling!

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