Scientia: The Slow Writer Syndrome

Ever met a slow writer who outshines everyone else in examinations and wondered his secret?

Writing is the use of written words to express opinions or ideas. Writings can therefore be done quickly or slowly. Dr. Marc Seifer, a graphologist and handwriting expert who wrote The Definitive Book of Handwriting Analysis in 2008, shared some of the top ways writing by hand can help our brains beyond just dotting our i's and crossing our t's.

More specifically, Writing a calming sentence is a form of Graphotherapy. As the act of writing is therapeutic because through writing “we exteriorize in words”, thoughts, wishes and emotions, which we “liberate”, Graphotherapy is a means of making conscious alterations in your handwriting in order to effect desired subconscious changes in your personality. Jotting down a sentence like, "I will be more peaceful" at least 20 times per day can actually have an impact, especially on individuals with attention deficit disorder. This actually calms the person down and retrains the brain. 

In his preface to Daybreak (1887), German philosopher and philologist, Friedrich Nietzsche recommended the practice of slow reading. According to him, "it is not for nothing that I have been a philologist, that is, a teacher of slow reading; in the end I also write slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste -a malicious taste, perhaps? - no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every sort of man who is "in a hurry." For philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow.

For this reason, it is more necessary than ever today (in the midst of an age of "work,") that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to "get everything done" at once, including every old or new book: this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read well, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers. (Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, translated by R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge University Press, 1997)

The testimonials from practitioners suggest that Slow Writing allows learners to not only think about what they're writing, but also how they are writing – slowing down the writing process to ensure high
quality.