Being creative is a good thing. But how do we increase our creative abilities? Science has some suggestions.
- Happy songs make us more creative. Researchers found that people who listened to happy music (in this case, Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (Spring), came up with the most innovative and useful solutions to creative tasks.
Ritter, S.M. (2017). Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking. PLos ONE, 12(9). e0182210. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182210
- Exercise can make you more creative.
Steinberg, H., Sukes, E.A., Moss, T., Lowery, S., LeBoutillier, N., & Dewey, A. (1997). Exercise enhances creativity independently of mood. Journal of Sports Medicine, 31. 240-245.
- Walking, in particular, makes you more creative. Researchers found that during a walk and immediately after that, 81% of study participants scored higher on a measure of creativity than when sedentary. They suggest that walking "opens up the free flow of ideas."
Oppezzo, M., & Schwartz, D.L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(4). 1142-1152. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036577
- In contrast, it seems that lying down also boosts creativity. The researchers speculate that our brain chemistry differs when lying down than when standing up. When we stand up, noradrenaline is released in the brain, and the chemical is believed to inhibit creative thought.
Lipnicki, D. M., & Byrne, D. G. (2005). Thinking on your back: Solving anagrams faster when supine than when standing. Cognitive Brain Research, 24(3), 719–722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2005.03.003
How seriously should you take these papers? Ideally, these studies should be replicated (redone, successfully) to become accepted. In the meantime, however, why not do your own experiments?
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