Stories and the Brain

In a recent article from Leo Widrich, the founder of Buffer, he outlined the many ways a story can impact our brain in ways that mere facts cannot.

• regular information activates only our language processing parts in the brain, where stories also activate other areas, such as our sensory cortex or motor cortex – and MORE brain parts are always good right?!
• when we tell a story, many areas of our brain are activated, and the person listening to our story has the same parts activated by us – this means “By simply telling a story…[we] could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners’ brains”
• when we hear a story, we try to find a way to connect it to our personal experiences, often we will turn a story into our own, re-telling it to someone else, which again means “a story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience”

Neuroeconomics pioneer, Paul Zak, says that stories have a potential to change our brain chemistry,

We will discuss the arc in 1. Writing.