Neuroscience expert and innovation coach Tanja Yardley shares that most of us don’t allow our minds to wander—to the detriment of creativity. Instead, she says we should take advantage of times not usually meant for the creative process to come up with more and better ideas.
Episode Transcript:
Creativity also requires a high level of autonomy. Part of creating a really good environment to generate novel thinking is actually owning a piece of your day and setting time aside specifically for that activity. Another powerful booster of creativity is a good mood. If you’re grumpy or frustrated or you’re not in your best state of mind, you can actually shut down the parts of your brain that are stimulated during creative thinking and your fight and flight impulses stop you from opening your mind to new possibilities. So, putting yourself in a good mood is crucial.
The other thing that’s really interesting is that we tend to shut ourselves down when our mind begins to wander. In fact, a wandering mind is one of the best parts of the creative process. I usually recommend that people get outside, get into nature, and in addition to taking themselves for a walk, they let their mind go for a wander. Often people will report that during a run or a walk in nature or a shower or something that is not normally a part of the creative process, they have some of their very best ideas. So, I highly recommend that you get outdoors and do that. There was a study at the University of Utah that actually showed people who did a creative task and then went out into the woods for four days, came back and actually performed 50% better on that same creative task after getting out into nature and shutting down the world around them.
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