3 Mental Health Benefits of Doodling

If you’re experiencing increased levels of stress and decreased concentration, doodling might be the tool you need. It has many mental health benefits and has been shown to improve attention, even though it might look like you aren’t paying attention! Did you know Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were famous doodlers?

Enter the Power of Doodling! Below you’ll find 3 ways doodling can help your stress, creativity, and attention.

Alleviates Stress 

Perhaps you’re experiencing increased stress lately, well, one way to handle it is through the repetitive motion of moving the pen across the page. Having a doodle journal where you make the same shape over and over again can bring about a meditative state that helps you relax and feel a sense of calm. And if you’re prone to feel stressed about making mistakes fear no more! There are no mistakes when you doodle which makes the process especially freeing. 

Primes Your Creativity

Creativity is a skill we would all benefit from improving and one of the easiest ways to practice is through doodling. Simple doodling is a great warm-up exercise to stimulate areas of the brain which normally remain dormant when you’re just in linguistic, or word, mode. Good problem-solving skills all require a healthy dose of creative thinking and when practicing your doodles you begin to analyze information differently. This can lead to “ah-ha” moments when the solution to a problem you’ve been struggling with suddenly becomes evident as you’re drawing one circle after another. 

Improves Attention

The act of doodling may look like someone isn’t paying attention or has “spaced out” but it’s actually thought to be a very mindful exercise. Art Therapy Studies have speculated that the act of doodling while listening to important information actually helps the listener be more present and in tune with the speaker. This is a great strategy for those with a schedule full of meetings and not enough concentration. By doodling a number, word, or image related to the meeting topic you can improve your retention of the information. 

So open up your notebook, or sketch pad, and start doodling! If you aren’t sure which journal notebook to start with, check out this post on How to choose the right journal notebook.