November 2, 2023 – Wherever you look, you see evidence of creativity: painters, architects, dancers, Ted Lasso writers (oy!), fashion-forward friends, trick-play coaches, fast-acting surgeons, sandcastle builders, TikTokking violinists, tweeters who can dream up a meme, chefs who can come up with 42 unique uses for fig jam, editors who allow writers to words to use fig jam.
We often assume that it is only the tortured artists of the world who are blessed with these skills.
“You don’t have to be a tortured soul to be creative,” says Art Markman, PhD, associate provost and professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin.
We all use creativity to some extent as part of our daily rhythms of living, thinking and doing.
In fact, it’s a mistake to pigeonhole “creativity” as just a capital C creative endeavor, because creativity can be learned, developed, and nurtured—and regularly flexing your creative muscles benefits your brain and mind. overall health for the better.
The best part: creativity is limitless. It can be LOUD, GREAT, and PUBLIC, but it can also be a to whispera soft to approach playing with your brain – without an end point, without a product, without a standing ovation or 10,000 likes.
The key?
“It’s the process of creation—the engagement—that enhances creativity,” says Christianne Strang, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, neuroscientist and art therapist.
The link between creativity and health
Strang says that creativity has an adaptive value: if our early ancestors had a problem (cornered by a snarling beast) and a creative solution (hmm, this chain made from tusk shards is a handy weapon for gouging out the eyes), the greater the chance we had to survive. While these kinds of benefits can certainly still exist today for people who find themselves in a life-and-death situation, the lesson of adaptive health is that the process of creative thinking is indeed good for people.
Years ago, research into creativity and health seemed as unlikely as AI wrote half of this story (it didn’t!). But now there is a large body of research looking at the links between creativity and brain health – but the benefits may not stop there.
This is evident from a study in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health showed that higher creativity and well-being have a positive relationship. And creative activities have been linked to improved immune function and also have a positive impact on conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and a host of other mental health issues.
“One thing that happens with depression is that people can get stuck in their thoughts and ideas and start to believe in their abilities and self-efficacy,” Strang said. But when they can be creative, they improve their ability to function – and therefore better support mental health.
Perhaps best of all, creativity and mood can work in a positive spiral.
When people are in a positive mood and happy, they often come up with more original ideas, and when you are happier, you are more creative.
“Having insight can make you extremely aroused and increase dopamine,” says Carola Salvi, PhD, who studies creativity and cognitive flexibility as a research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School and as a professor at John Cabot University. Rome. .
The stages of creativity
What happens in your brain during the creative process? There are many variables at work – depending on who you are, what you do and your goals.
“People often think that creativity just comes out,” says Indre Viskontas, PhD, associate professor at the University of San Francisco, neuroscientist and operatic soprano. “But any professional will tell you that’s not true.”
That’s because the creative process uses both the executive function areas of the brain (which are involved in logical thinking) and the default mode network – connected areas of the brain that activate when you’re not focused on what’s going on around you ( daydreaming or other ‘silly’ activities).
There are four stages of the creative process process:
Preparation (executive function): This can take many forms, such as identifying a problem, setting goals, setting boundaries, or even learning a new skill. You need to learn the basic chords before you can start playing center guitar solos.
Incubation (standard mode network): This is where you give yourself the time and space to let your thoughts dominate, Viskontas said. Your brain is essentially slowly cooking up a neurological jambalaya – nothing to look at, nothing to do, just let all the cool ingredients simmer in your noggin. Creative solutions and ideas rise to the surface as your brain forms distant associations.
“The paradox of creativity is [that] Running away from your problem and situation is the path to being more creative,” says Markman.
Relief(standard mode network): This aha!-eureka! moments often happen in the shower because our brains are not distracted. They’re also connected to the brain’s salience network, which means they’re strongly connected to emotions (you feel that dopamine boost when the switch flips and you win an idea).
“When people are being creative, they often don’t focus or give all their attention to the subject,” says Mark Runco, PhD, director of creativity research and programming at Southern Oregon University. “The relaxed state opens the door to more remote associations and a wider range of possibilities.”
Verification (executive function): How do we know if an idea is good? You need the prefrontal cortex to evaluate it – and monitor its execution. That doesn’t mean bad ideas don’t have a purpose (see below), but when the stakes are high, we need validation. Consider, for example, creative medical solutions; it is important to know whether an innovative solution has worked.
How to get ‘better’ at creativity
The value of developing the skill of mind play is that it can improve not only your health, but also your life skills. People who are more creative in problem solving tend to be more critical thinkers, Salvi said.
“You can always develop these kinds of skills, always learn new things, always learn new strategies, always train yourself to recognize that the downside of a bad idea is not so bad and the downside of a good idea is very powerful. Markman said.
Some approaches:
Give yourself plenty of incubation time. Viskontas loves running – and she takes the same route almost every time to make the activity as mindless as possible. Showering, shopping and walking can all work the same way.
Change the way you brainstorm. “Brainstorming seems like a lot of fun, but it doesn’t really work well,” says Markman. Rather than bringing a group together to come up with lots of ideas, it’s more effective to come up with ideas on your own and then come together to evaluate and build on them. “Instead of group brainstorming, it should be individual brainstorming and then using the power of a group to evaluate,” Markman said.
Close your eyes. Your visual cortex is often less active during the creative phases. Makes sense, right? That’s why we look at the ceiling when brainstorming. “To have creative ideas, people tend to tune out distractions and focus more inward,” says Salvi.
Consume, consume, consume. The more you read, watch and learn, the bigger the neurological library you build. “One of the things we know about being creative is that you have to have a fair amount of knowledge,” says Markman. “What you often do is apply knowledge where it has not been applied before.”
Tune into your inclinations. “You need to know your chronotype – when you can best concentrate consciously and when your mind naturally wanders,” Viskontas said. If you can match the time of day to when you are best at a task, you will improve the process.
Stop briefly. “One thing I learned from Hemingway, and not directly, is always leave something in the cup,” Viskontas said. That is, if you’re working on a creative endeavor, don’t leave the project with a natural end point; leave when you are just short of it. Knowing where to start next time is a big advantage over starting with a blank page.
Embrace the bad ideas. We tend to shut down when we’re ashamed, which hurts creativity, Markman said. “One of the things we know is that the people with the best ideas have the most ideas. Creative people have a lot of bad ideas,” he said. So it’s valuable not to suppress your process because of fear of how others might react. “Even our mistakes have value,” Strang said. “We need to embrace them instead of shutting them down.”
Try something new. Markman, who picked up the saxophone in his 30s, suggests that learning new skills, such as in the creative arts, can be good for your brain and for improving your innovation skills.
“When people allow themselves to play, it feels good. They may not like how it looks, but it felt good to do it – the expressive, spontaneous mentality. Being creative can be rewarding in itself if we allow ourselves to be,” Strang said.