The Blogging Brain

Todays guest post is from Dr. Robyn McMaster.

Dr. Robyn McMaster is Sr. VP of the MITA International Brain Center. She’s the author of Brain Based Biz. She’s a close friend and wise advisor.

Blogging stimulates the brain as you make public ideas that rouse “aha’s.” Shaping and sharing ideas with a wider community provides incentive, especially as you’re rewarded by readers’ comments. Another bonus comes as surprises unwrap themselves as you read and learn from others’ blogs.

Interestingly, mental activities required for blogging, such as learning how to use technology to launch a blog, using your computer to write, writing for an audience, selecting just the right photo to go with posts, researching what others have written about your topic, commenting on their posts and writing from a new, fresh approach, leads to changes in the structures of your brain. How so?

Your brain rewires nightly as you sleep, based on the activities you do during the day. “It’s really a matter of neurons and dendrites,” Dr. Ellen Weber reports, “that spark new synapses for change. Ellen describes the process…

Your browser may not support display of this image. Remember, a neuron’s nothing more than a nerve cell, and your brain holds about 100 billion of these little critters. You can march them much more in your favor – with a few carefully crafted acts. How so? Neurons project extensions called dendrite brain cells – which connect and reconnect daily, based on what you do. Axons, in contrast, relay information back from the body back to the brain. In a rather complex electrochemical process, neurons communicate with each other in synapses, and that connection creates chemicals called neurotransmitters. Chemicals release at each synapse, and these shape mood, open brains to optimize learning and stoke creative solutions to complex problems. Many mysteries still occur in the quadrillion synapses within a human brain, and yet wonderful benefits await people who act on what recent research suggests.

As your dendrites rewire they strengthen blogging and writing skills. The more you write, seek to improve, try new formats, and use tips good writers, like Liz Strauss, share, the more new dendrites for writing skills will be wired into your brain.

Once you launch a blog and you are underway, you can gather readers interested in your topic by becoming active in social networks. And even joining social networks prompts our brains to rewire…

Social Networks Change the Face of Friendships Here’re some facts on ways blogging and networking alter the face of your friendships:

* The human brain steps up to challenges and intellectual ideas. These lead people to discuss deeper issues on topics of similar interest.

* Online users have the same number of friends in real-life, but even more counterparts online

* Myspace, Facebook and Twitter are changing the number of friends people have and the way they communicate

* 90% of online friends rated as ‘close’ have met face to face

* People choose friends in person and online based on their ‘quality’… In person, facial and bodily cues help, but online it’s harder to spot dishonest signals

* Social networks aid communication and may bring about a change in the size and structure of real-life social networks in the future

Social networks change us and we change social networks! Over time the demographics of bloggers changes, as described in Cason Analytics blogging stats.

Blogging promotes higher cognitive skills, according to Dr’s. Fernette and Brock Eide. You stretch your brain through:

* critical and analytical thinking The best of blogs are rich in ideas and promote active exchange and critique.

* creative, intuitive, and associational thinking Blogs must be updated frequently. This constant demand for output promotes a kind of spontaneity and ‘raw thinking’–the fleeting associations and the occasional outlandish ideas–seldom found in more formal media.

* analogical thinking Back-and-forth blog-based exchanges between experts also provide a unique opportunity for young thinkers to witness and evaluate arguments from analogy on an ongoing basis.

* medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information Because blogs link many facts and arguments in branching “threads” and webs, and append primary source materials and reference works, they foster deeper understanding and exposure to quality information.

* combinations of best solitary reflection and social interaction Bloggers have solitary time to plan their posts, but they can also receive rapid feedback on their ideas. The responses may open up entirely new avenues of thought as posts circulate and garner comments.

Think about it … Blogging’s quite a workout. When I finish writing a blog, I find satisfaction from all the intellectual stimulation. You?

5 shared habits that shape every effective blogger’s brain….

A blogger’s brain comes alive … Dr. Ellen Weber summarizes it well …

* Visitors stop by …. Have you seen your messages come to life with a new twist … an unusual turn … or two-bits of wit-‘n-wisdom that bumps a good idea to the next level.

* Traffic means humans more than scores or pings.

* Ideas… images … and applications pop up like popcorn ready to serve and share with eager … diverse crowds.

* Small rewards pay it forward. It could be in the form of a badge … a cup… or just a few words that lift a thought up to the rainbow for another look.

* You learn something new … from somebody new … about a topic that’s new….

Blogs are not only changing the way we think… act … and do business …. They are also helping us to come and go into one another’s worlds… and that reshapes the best bloggers’ brains. What do you think?