How Greeting Cards Can Develop the Brain – By Dr Lynda Shaw
Dexterity of emotion, mental agility and hand-eye coordination are essential for creative thought, processing new information and efficient learning. Did you know you can get all of this by choosing, writing and sending a card? In this 20 minute talk you will find out how this happens, why it’s important and how you can use this information in your business.
In 1903 the first cars came on the market. People thought that would be the end of bicycles. But the global bicycle industry is over €35billion and rising.
When we bought our first TVs people thought that was the end of radio. But radio is incredibly strong with many new stations popping up every day, even in the form of podcasts which are very similar to radio.
When computers became accessible people thought that was the end of paper. Have you seen a drop in the use of paper? Do you have piles of papers on your desk and even in your kitchen? If you’re anything like me, I’m constantly shifting mountains of paper from my desk.
And now we hear that children are given a tablet when they start school with all the text books they will need throughout their years at that school, safely filed away for use each year. The death knell of books and after a certain age, even writing.
In fact, just this week I was among 1500 people listening to a professor who was highlighting the fact that children’s hand writing has deteriorated because they are writing less.
Well take a look at this. Do you know what it is? It’s a stylus for us to write on our tablets and phones. I find this hilarious! What an original idea – writing! Not!
The irony is not lost is it?
In the next 20 minutes we are going to talk about why writing is so incredibly important for our mental development as children that continues throughout life.
We are going to talk about the emotional value of choosing, writing and sending cards.
And we are going to talk about how the greeting card industry, your industry, can use this information in your marketing, sales promotion to keep business alive and well.
Does that sound good?
Before I begin can you please think of a marketing or sales challenge you have or perhaps it’s a member of staff whose attitude is really not as you want it to be.
What problem do you have that this information might be able to help with?
If you want to write it down, please go ahead. This is for your eyes only.
Thank you. Everything I say from now on and I want you to think how this can help you solve this particular problem. This is the most useful way of listening to this presentation.
Story:
When I was a little girl, my grandfather used to write my birthday cards, not my grandmother which always seemed unusual to me. They were always from both of them but always in my grandfather’s writing.
He would also write all the Christmas cards. I thought that rather odd too.
It wasn’t until my grandfather became very ill that I started to take notice. You see he decided to try to teach my grandmother how to write cheques, so that she could pay the bills. Now that blew me away, how come my grandmother couldn’t write a cheque?
Sadly, she wasn’t in the least bit interested in these new lessons, but he kept trying. I think he knew he was not long for this earth, so wanted to make her life easier when he was no longer around.
My grandmother just got cross with him as only a wife of many years can and would walk off to do something else. Was she unwilling or unable to learn?
My grandmother wasn’t stupid by any means. But she was a tiny shy lady who could be quite timid at times (apart from when she was cross with my grandfather). This in itself was unusual because none of her siblings were in the least bit timid. So none of this made much sense to me.
I knew my grandmother was left handed, but so what?
Well it was a big ‘so what’ when she was at school. She was born in 1908, so there was still a huge amount of superstition about being left handed. For instance, back in the 17th century it was believed that the devil baptised his followers with his left hand. Folk lore and superstition stick for centuries and left handed people were discriminated against right into the 20th century and probably still are. My grandmother’s teacher would hit her across the knuckles with a ruler every time she wrote with her left hand. Can you imagine that? No wonder she was a timid lady.
The teacher probably thought she was doing her a favour by making her use her right hand, but when 1:10 people are left handed she must have broken quite a few rulers.
So what has this got to do with you and your business?
Writing is incredibly important for the development of our brain as children and throughout our whole lives.
There is increasing evidence that manual dexterity has a positive effect on our ability to learn. This is not really surprising, because the evolution of homo sapiens was caused and accompanied by the development of hand-eye-brain coordination in a continuous virtuous circle.
I think we all know that when we want to learn something, writing it down helps us retain the information. But there is more to it than that. When writing, the brain is activated in such a way that we learn easier and we generate ideas.
The neural pathway is huge because we have to plan, move our hand, assess how well we’ve done and try to do better which all involves memory and the executive functions such as judgement. This is big stuff.
When writing we are having to focus, concentrate and think clearly. And when we master it, it frees us up to use our attention and concentration on composition and content.
Of course as we get older writing becomes second nature and it can be argued that all the benefits from writing were when we were children.
But this isn’t so, because we still engage the same neural pathways that help us learn throughout our lives. In fact, we can learn until the day we die regardless of our age. Change that, we should keep learning. Curiosity leads to learning and this is what keeps us young and healthy.
We all write every day. At work, even it’s just a to-do list. And as we said earlier, we are now writing to communicate with computers.
And have you noticed this, when we write we concentrate more so as not to make a mistake? When we type making mistakes is less important because we constantly check, correct, change as we go. So we could argue that we are more thorough when writing. And important skill for life.
Does anyone here use a fountain pen?
I’ve just started using one again. And I absolutely love it. I even sit up straighter. It’s glorious to write with a stunning pen. The feeling you get is one of pleasure.
And do you know what happens when we put the brain in a pleasurable state…we are the most efficient and effect we can be.
Let me explain:
To start with we stimulate the dopamine reward system in the brain. Dopamine improves our mood and motivation.
Serotonin is another neurotransmitter, which you have probably heard of. This is the happy chappy and regulates our sleep, appetite and emotions.
So when we feel good and serotonin is working it’s magic we sleep and eat properly and can emotionally cope far better.
But what is incredibly exciting is the bi-directional nature of something called neuropeptides, which are tiny molecules of parts of proteins.
Research shows that neuropeptides switch on emotion and emotion switches on neuropeptides.
They are involved in hormone regulation, they help the body repair after injury, help with storing memories and support the immune system which will keep cancer cells at a manageable level.
Specific neuropeptides like endorphins are a natural pain killer. Oxytocin another, lowers blood pressure, stress and inflammation. And vasopressin and nitric oxide increase circulation, which supports a healthy heart.
Neuropeptides also act as hormones, which means that they reach further than the brain and into the body. So when we get a gut feel about something, a receptor to neuropeptides in the gut tells us to listen to our apparent instincts, which are in actual fact an emotional response from these tiny messengers.
Simple pleasures do a huge amount. So how happy are your staff. Do they enjoy their job? If they do they will be far more productive and have far less sick leave.
To write in a beautiful card leads to a sense of pride, a ritual, a celebration and this takes us on to the next benefit.
The emotional value of a greeting card – there are stages we go through when sending a card.
First we have to think of the person. We think about their birthday, anniversary or whatever. That’s a good thing isn’t it? So thinking about someone is a good thing right? Cards do that.
We then choose a card, so more thinking about them. We step into the world of mindfulness. Have you thought about that?
Mindfulness is very fashionable at the moment. Do you use that in your marketing? Here’s a challenge for you – look around a card shop and watch the customers…. often the concentration is amazing. People totally in the zone, thinking about the recipient of the card, trying to find the perfect words.
It’s a delicate balance, some people love receiving mushy cards, others funny cards, others clever cards. Some people look for cards that reflect a person’s hobby or work – fishing, flying, cars. Some feel terribly sad while searching for that delicate sympathy card. Or excited to buy a new-born baby card. The list goes on.
But there is one thing that most customers have in common, their level of concentration. I can go into a shop and try to squeeze past someone and say excuse me several times. But they don’t hear me because they are mindfully concentrating on choosing the right product.
This is an emotional judgement. I specialise in emotions in business and I promise you, if you don’t consider emotion in the way you work, in the whole customer journey, you will be missing an enormous trick.
So they are in a heightened emotional state and they then write their card. Not only is this about dexterity and the benefits to the brain, this is also a big task. They will want to choose the right words, but even if they just leave the message to the printed words, they will still not want to make a mistake when writing who it’s to and who it’s from.
And then they send it to arrive on time. More planning, more brain power. And hoping their sentiment will not be misunderstood. Imagine a valentine card
How you can use this information in your marketing? Or your sales?
In summary, ladies and gentlemen, there is a lot more to greeting cards than people think.
Handwriting trains our brain to process information more efficiently, to learn more easily and have brilliant ideas.
They make us consider someone when we choose a card we know they will love – we develop mindfulness.
They make us connect to that person when we write our message – we connect emotionally which does us an enormous amount of good.
Please remember this: You are in a great industry because greeting cards enable and empower.