It's All in the Handwriting

I used to write letters all the time and found myself caught up in the tech world of texting, facebooking, etc. Gradually my journaling and letter writing fell by the wayside.

Loss of verbal skills

What I began to notice was the slow loss of the ability to remember the correct word for a sentence, whether in a phone conversation or person to person. I have had MS since I was 34 and I will soon be 65. Long time, but I left work on disability last year and what I discovered was my lack of verbal skills was linked to the lack of usage of my writing skills.

Writing has improved my coordination and verbal skills

Since I have gone back to writing both letters and journaling I am discovering that my hand-eye coordination has picked up and my loss of words isn't nearly as bad as it had been. I truly believe that if we look at our lives and evaluate what we are doing now compared to what we use to do we can see the difference. Yes, texting and FBooking are faster but at what cost?

My aunt commented to me that it was a thrill to get a genuine letter in the mail and sit and read it, that there was satisfaction in the act of opening the letter and reading what it had to say, vs, a bill or political junk mail.

Writing by hand to recall motion and memory

My challenge to those of us with MS is to see if this makes a difference in your life as well. The act of slowing down to write by hand can recall motion and brain much like music recalls memory for someone with Alzheimer's.