REWIRING OUR BRAINS
30-Day Drawing Habit, Surprise Visitors, The Name Game, Multivitamins FTW
“Drawing is looking, and looking is loving.” - Wendy MacNaughton
Hiya Friends!
Hope your 2024 is off to a sweet start and you’re feeling spry. Here at In With The Old headquarters, I’ve been hobbled by back pain for a couple of weeks. I wish I could tell you that I sustained my injury while pulling off a heroic feat, like rescuing a small child from a burning building, fighting crime, or stumbling away from the wreckage of a plane crash. But no. I tweaked my back just standing at my desk, staring at my screen. *Sigh*
The good news is, I’m finally starting to feel better. I even managed to return to tap dance class, though I had to take it very easy and tap gingerly. No hopping, leaping, or jumping for me, sadly. Taking it easy and going slow is not my M.O.. My default setting is—“How do I quickly become an advanced practitioner at this thing I just started.” In other words, I have the opposite of a beginner’s mindset. I am aware, however, that it’s far healthier to let go of ye olde ego and enjoy life as the headliner of amateur hour, and that’s how I’ve spent the bulk of the new year so far.
THE 30-DAY DRAWING HABIT
On January 1st, I, along with thousands of folks, joined the illustrator/graphic journalist,
I have very little drawing game. When I spotted a link to the 30-day Drawing Habit on Substack, I figured it would hurl me out of my comfort zone. Sure, I took a drawing class in high school about five million years ago, and in 2016, I completed an illustrated journaling workshop, but I didn’t keep up with it. I’ve never had a handle on how to draw perspective. In fact, I showed Jared one of my drawings of a houseplant and he said, “Have you learned about perspective yet?” Wise guy. Let’s just say that if I once learned the basics of drawing, I remember nothing now. The beauty is, none of that matters here! The skill levels in this group are all over the place. Some folks are absolute beginners. Others are clearly professional illustrators. Everyone is extra supportive and lovely. We’re two weeks in and I’m thrilled to report that this has been a most joyous experience!
Each morning, I head to my desk, eager to get started on the day’s 10-minute drawing exercise. Ten minutes isn’t a lot of time to complete a drawing, and that’s precisely the point. Wendy designed the challenge to help participants forgo perfectionist tendencies, slow down, and really pay attention to the world around us. As much as I hate being mediocre, I’ve found this process to be surprisingly meditative, hilarious, and at times emotional. I actually teared up drawing details from the last time I saw my grandma on a trip to New York in 2000. The bonus has been the supportive community aspect. I love applauding all the ways different artists interpret the day’s assignment in the group chat, and in turn receiving a bit of encouragement on my sketches.
REWIRING OUR BRAINS
On day 10, we were instructed to do a blind contour drawing by placing our pen on the page and drawing our subject without lifting the pen or looking down at the paper. As you can see in the gallery above, my blind contour drawing of Noodle is missing an eye and his paws are blobs. Still, much to my amazement, I feel like I captured his essence and shape.
In her Ted Talk, Wendy explains that the overabundance of stimuli in the world is too much for our brains to process. To compensate, “We fill in the world with patterns. Most of what we see is our own expectations.” As an example, she displays a drawing of a “face”—a circle with almond eyes, an L-shaped nose, and a half circle for a mouth—or what she calls “short hand” for a face since it actually looks nothing like a real face. Blind contour drawings require us to focus solely on our subject, which helps rewire our brains and teaches us how to really take-in the world around us. If you have 13 minutes, watch Wendy’s Ted Talk below where she had her audience members do blind contour drawings of each other. I loved her anecdote about her encounter with Don the boot maker. It made me think of some of the folks I met on my recent business trip to Minneapolis. (More about that in an upcoming post.) If you’re interested in the 30-Day Drawing Habit, it’s not too late to jump in.
WORTH THE WAIT
Since I’m on the topic of taking things slow and paying attention to the world around me, I must share some exciting bird news. For years, I ignored birds. I had friends and family members who were legit bird nerds, and I thought that was great . . . for them. Then, a few years ago, my biological bird clock switched into high gear and I discovered that birds were adorable and fascinating creatures. I purchased a hummingbird feeder and bonded with a neighbor who had a bunch of finch feeders hanging from the trees outside her house. She recommended I follow suit with tree feeders, and install a clear window box feeder to watch the birds up close like an avian version of The Truman Show. Jared climbed up a ladder and suction-cupped the clear feeder to the window in front of our treadmill. I couldn’t wait to ogle birds while getting my daily steps in.
Well, the birds flocked to the standard tree-hanging feeders in short order, but the window feeder sat dormant. It was like an ugly house for sale that nobody wanted to inhabit. Dead leaves and balls from the Ficus tree fell on top of the seeds when it rained. I’d periodically examine the seed level and wonder if perhaps birds were visiting when I wasn’t looking though that seemed unlikely. For whatever reason, this feeder was a bust. I resolved to take it down, or rather, get Jared to take it down. We never got around to it.
Cut to, a couple of days ago (eight months after we hung the feeder!). I was sitting at the dining table, working on my ten-minute drawing exercise and Jared said, “There’s a bird in the feeder!” I dashed over to the window and lo and behold, there was a bird (maybe a woodpecker??) eating seeds! Then another bird showed up, or maybe it was the same one back for seconds. Take a look at the video below and you’ll see and hear this bird pecking away at the ledge, hence my woodpecker assumption. Please feel free to weigh in and identify this bird if you’re a bird expert.
REMAINING OPEN TO POSSIBILITY
This development made me gleeful! Instead of hunkering down and getting work done, I sat for hours admiring my new my winged visitors. Witnessing this feeder morph into an instant bird hot spot struck me as a metaphor for life, and a good reminder to remain patient and open to possibilities. It brought to mind the time I sent out my very first unsolicited pitch to a magazine in April of 2020 and . . . crickets. Finally, in August, after I’d completely forgotten I’d sent out the pitch, I received an email from the editor-in-chief expressing interest. I nearly died from shock. In both of these cases, I’d put what I wanted out there, and when nothing happened, I moved on. I think the most important step was giving the feeder and my essay a chance. The fact that it took such a long time to get results made the payoff seem even more miraculous. I love that in a world of turmoil and predictable outcomes, there are still so many splendiferous surprises.
THE NAME GAME
I’ve always been terrible at remembering names and it’s been a source of frustration for me. So last year, I committed to making more of an effort. I started in tap class by asking someone their name, and thinking of an association to help it stick. For instance, when I saw my classmate, Eileen, I’d silently sing the song, “Come on, Eileen.” Around the holidays, I found out a student’s name is Lane, so in my head now she’s “Candy Cane Lane.”
All this time, I thought my inability to recall names was laziness on my part, but a New York Times article from November claims that it’s actually “normal.”
Perhaps you smile and shake hands with a new acquaintance, and then promptly forget the person’s name. Or maybe you walk into your kitchen to do … something. What was it again?
Exasperating as it is, this type of forgetfulness is usually normal, said Dr. Sharon Sha, a professor of neurology at Stanford University.
Phew! That’s a relief. The article goes on to explain that any new information we encounter during our day is held in a temporary state called “working memory.” And like Wendy brings up in her Ted Talk, we’re inundated with too much info. The brain can only handle about four or five thoughts in its working memory at a time. If we want those thoughts stored in our long-term memory, we have to “encode” them.
This works like a computer’s “save” function, said Dr. Scott Small, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University. “If you’re taking notes and you close your computer without saving, your notes are gone forever,” he said.
The encoding process involves creating meaningful connections between brain cells and requires ample working memory. So if you’re preoccupied with introducing yourself to someone new or deciding what you’ll say next, your brain won’t encode information like the new name you hear — and you’ll promptly forget it.
Turns out that the trick to encoding memories is pretty much what I’ve been doing in tap class and the 30-Day Drawing Habit.
Writing new information by hand — be it on paper or a tablet with a digital stylus — can activate more of the brain than typing can, further strengthening our memories. The more times we repeat something, the more likely we are to remember it, Dr. Davis said.
Assign meaning. Remembering arbitrary information can be particularly challenging, Dr. Reder said. That’s why it is sometimes easier to recall names that are connected to certain characteristics or qualities. We might remember a dog named Rusty if it had rust-colored fur, for example.
“If you meet someone named Michelle who’s from Florida, you can imagine a Florida beach with a seashell, which sounds like Michelle,” Dr. Gallo said. “Now you can associate that name with a context, visual image and rhyme.”
Sing along. On a similar note, remembering can come easier when information is set to tunes, Dr. Sha said. You might remember an advertisement jingle, for example, even if it’s for a product you’d never buy.
Neuroscientists are still learning why music helps, but Dr. Sha said that “tagging” memories with tunes might move them into different parts of the brain, making them more likely to stick.
Initially, I approached learning people’s names as a way to train my brain. I hadn’t considered the impact it would have on others. What’s been lovely is noticing how happy it makes people when I call them by their name. People tend to light up and smile. It’s wild that something this simple can help us better connect as humans.
TAKE YOUR VITAMINS
If you’ve ever wondered whether vitamins are the worth the choking risk (I certainly have), the answer is YES. In a new study, the third of its kind, multivitamins have been proven to help improve cognition and prevent memory loss! Color me stunned. I thought for sure vitamins were useless pellets designed to make Herbalife reps rich. Not so says this expert.⬇️
“Cognitive decline is among the top health concerns for most older adults, and a daily supplement of multivitamins has the potential as an appealing and accessible approach to slow cognitive aging,” said first author Chirag Vyas, MBBS, MPH, instructor in investigation at the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system
Help! I need a good multivitamin to take, tout de suite. If you take one that isn’t gigantic, please share info in the chat.
Okay. That’s a wrap for today. If you enjoyed any of my musings, tap the ❤️ button, or leave a note in the comment section. I always love hearing from you. And if you know anyone who’d like In With The Old, please forward this on.
My vitamin recommendation is Smarty Pants for Women gummy vitamins. I love them!!
Hilary!!!! You are inspiring me so so much to draw! My personal favorite is your self portrait! Actually, all of them are so good and different. I know you talk about how your drawing game sucks but you played the game even though it’s not your forte and stuck with it and look all this cool stuff you made!