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Zoe Greenhalgh

Oodles n’ Oodles of Doodles

You’re in a classroom and the teacher is at the front presenting a boring lecteur again. Bringing your pen to the paper your eyes wander to the corner with the faint sound of your teachers' verbal information surrounding you. One stroke… Two strokes… Three strokes. 


Boom!


You’ve drawn a blob with a face. The blob turns into a flower. A flower into a collection of patterns. A collection of patterns into a scribbled masterpiece. A scribbled masterpiece into…. I think you get the point.


Now, I’m sure that I am not the only one who ends up mindlessly scribbling away during a boring lecteur. But all these doodles hidden within the crevices of my notebooks got me thinking… why? Why do I resort to doodling? Are there any benefits… or am I just toiling away precious time and information? Well, for anyone who’s interested, let’s dive a little further into this topic, shall we?


According to a study from 2009, by psychologist Jackie Andrade, those who doodled recalled 29% more information than those who didn’t. You see, within this study, Andrade asked 40 people to listen to a two-and-a-half-minute long audio consisting of dull rambling. Afterwards, the group were asked, without knowledge that this was going to happen beforehand, to take a test recalling the information within the audio. This leads me back to the statistics from before, the group of people who doodled while listening to the dull audio recalled more information than those who didn’t. This study, while producing rather surprising results, there is still no definitive answer as to why doodling actually does help us recall more information. There are, however, some pretty valid theories. One of such is that doodling simply keeps us from falling asleep. It keeps your brain turned on for a little bit longer hence why you may still remember the information. Of course, this isn’t the only theory, but one that is the most likely reason.


Such benefits do not end here, though; doodling helps improve our mental health. Stress is something that some people do go through in everyday life, whether professionally or personally. But if such stress builds up, it can eventually damage your physical health too. Doodling has been considered a method to relieve such stress. Your drawing does not have to be perfect. It does not even have to look like anything. The repetitive motion of drawing something can help mitigate the negative effects of stress allowing the coordination of body and mind.


So in conclusion, doodling helps recall information, and helps our mental health. Is there anything this abstract world of scribbles can’t do? Of course, like anything, such is only beneficial when done in moderation, but with that, I do hope that you found all of this information helpful.


Happy doodling!


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