How does relaxation encourage creativity?

How does relaxation encourage creativity? I have just watched this lovely TED talk by Duncan Wardle about creativity. He points out that at some point in our childhood we stop being creative and playful. We stop being as curious, and stop thinking as expansively. We start thinking reductively because education and employment teach us to look for one right answer.

Being playful allows us permission to look for the big ideas. The best ideas come when we are relaxed.

We have four different brain states, alpha, beta, theta and delta. Beta waves occur when we are busy, when we are making quick decisions. Our conscious and subconscious brain is not connected during this state, so we can only access 13% of the information. The majority is stored in the subconscious.

Theta waves happen when we are just drifting off to sleep, and have some of our greatest thoughts. This is where the phrase “when the penny drops” comes from, as Edison used a falling penny to wake him so he could record his best ideas.

Delta waves happen when we are asleep, but we can’t remember our dreams in the morning.

Alpha waves are the best way to encourage creativity at work, and we can encourage these by running energizers to break the ice, and cause people to relax and come out of their busy beta state.

Our life experiences can become a barrier to creativity and innovation, so we can reintroduce these by asking people with less experience in your particular field to participate in the sessions. Duncan calls them naïve experts, as they often come up with the most creative ideas and help you to challenge your thinking.

We can also challenge the existing rules, and come up with new ones, by playing the role of the outlier. Similarly, we can use storytelling to come up with new ways of describing situations so we can come up with original creative solutions.

It’s important to also be brave. If we allow ourselves to be curious and playful, and brave enough to try out new ideas, our creativity and intuition will help us to survive in a world of ever-increasing artificial intelligence. As Duncan puts it, the opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.

Project 365

I set up this website after deciding that I want to build a more creative life for myself, so I can give up my job and be in control of my own destiny.

I have set myself a goal of publishing an article on my website every day this year, to document my journey from employment to self-employment.

The name I chose was Project 365 because I see this as a year that I have dedicated to learning and self-development, as I countdown to freedom. It started on 1st January 2021, so I have 239 days to go!