Facts and Statistics. 15 Scientific Facts About Creativity. Although creativity keeps human society flourishing, science honestly offers few answers to how the intricate, infinitely complex concept actually works.
No matter how much research pours into measuring and grasping the essential phenomenon, it seems as if more questions pop up than receive tangible answers. Theories and findings sometimes conflict with one another as well, meaning every "fact" presented here might very well end up discarded in due time. But that’s par for the course when exploring what seems almost entirely inexplicable. Stress kills creativityJust like it kills mental health, the heart, and pretty much everything else. Stress negatively impacts creative expression, particularly when it involves rigid timeframes and criteria. Creative thinkers have slower nervesDuring creative moments, the left frontal cortex experiences comparatively more sluggish activity, which also correlates with the aforementioned decreased white matter and connecting axons. Global Creativity Gap: Is Creativity Suffering? (Adobe Study) Greening Your Brain. Summer is over, which means that many of us are back to school, back to work, and back to city life.
City living can be taxing. Navigating crowded downtown streets, dealing with constant noise and general urban chaos can send even the most dedicated city dweller over the edge. Yet, as it happens, there are some pretty simple things you can do to counteract the negative aspects of urban life. One is just taking a little time out to spend in the park. Philosophers, writers and laypeople alike have long suspected that interacting with nature can have positive benefits on our cognitive functioning, creative abilities and even improve overall well-being.
Take work by Dr. In one study Kuo found that inner-city public housing residents randomly assigned to relatively 'green' high-rise apartment buildings, meaning that they had views of trees and grass rather than a vacant cement lot, scored higher on tests of attention and memory than did residents assigned to relatively 'barren' buildings. Want To Be Creative? Let Your Mind Wander. There is no denying it, whether at work, school, or in everyday life, we often encounter situations where thinking outside-the-box is necessary. It’s also true that sparks of insight can be somewhat hard to pin down. You just never know when creative thought will arise. Fortunately, new research published in the journal changes this. Psychologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have uncovered the very conditions that give rise to creative thought. As the researchers point out, there are countless anecdotal accounts of creativity happening when people take a break from whatever they are working on.
The UC Santa Barbara researchers began by having university undergraduate volunteers solve the Unusual Uses Task (UUT). Next, volunteers were randomly assigned to one of three incubation conditions where, during a 12 minute break period, they did something unrelated to the UUT. So what did the researchers find? But, here’s where the results get really interesting. How to Find Motivation for the Things You Hate Doing. Everyone has things they hate to do, but need to do anyway.
Sometimes it is doing basic chores that need to be done. In other cases, it’s the boring part of an otherwise interesting project. People who get things finished (as opposed to people who just get things started) have mastered the ability to push through the things they hate doing, to work on the things they love. Getting over activities you hate means combating a special type of procrastination.
Everyone procrastinates. While a few minutes or an hour of procrastination for a neutral task happens occasionally, you can procrastinate for years on the jobs you really hate. Stomaching Unappetizing Work There are a few strategies you can use to make bad tasting tasks a little more pleasant. You can do the same thing with the work you don’t like. Normally, the first reaction to unenjoyable tasks is to “get it over with”.
Try taking a reversed approach. Make it an Art Several years ago I did part-time work as a janitor. Motivation. The 20-Minute Exercise To Eradicate Negative Thinking. After a flurry of emails in response to my blog post on passion, I reached a disheartening realization: Passion is useless if you don’t already believe.
You see, what we can achieve is limited by what we believe. Henry Ford knew this: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.” So here I was, passionately committed to become the world-class business guru, best-selling author, the speaker who fills stadiums. And yet there was voice telling me, “You can’t do it. Keep trying, trying is fun, but in the end you will fail.” You’ve probably heard that voice as well. I’m making progress--my book sales are accelerating, my keynote audiences are growing, and I’m sharing the stage with people like Jack Welch and Robin Sharma--but in the back of my mind the voice pulls the reins: “You can’t do it.”
Great “outthinkers” seem to overcome this voice. Belief is contagious. A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. Games Wiki.