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How to Use Mindfulness to Boost Creativity You’ve probably heard about mindfulness, and maybe you even have a regular mindfulness practice. But did you know that mindfulness is useful not just for keeping you calm and focused, it can stimulate your creativity and open up your thinking? If you’re interested in reaching your creative potential, here’s how mindfulness can give you a boost. Understanding the Creative Process To understand how mindfulness can boost your creativity, it helps to look at the creative process. It can be a delicate synchronization of four steps:  Information gathering and idea stimulation. This is the blue-sky stage where you research and fire off as many ideas as you can. Your brain needs to be in free-roaming mode here, with your cognitive control network stood down to let you get on with it!  Incubation. Once you have as many thoughts and ideas down on paper as you can, your brain can get on processing and mulling over options for the next stage.  Stage three is inspiration. That Eureka moment when you make connections and get creative insights.  The final stage is the verification or testing phase when your critical brain can analyze and evaluate. Different parts of your brain dominate different stages of the creative process. Stage one relies on divergent thinking, which is freewheeling and non-critical. The incubation stage is taken care of by the brain’s memory organization area. The inspiration is controlled by your brain’s salience network, which is basically an early warning system for great ideas and making good choices. The verification stage is where you can allow the cognitive control network to get analyzing and critiquing. But it’s essential to keep these phases in sequence and in balance. If any of these stages get side-lined, say if your Inner Critic jumps in at Stage one or two, your creative process is in danger of falling apart. The Role of Mindfulness Mindfulness can help with each stage of the creative process. It boosts divergent thinking necessary for brainstorming, it calms distracting thoughts allowing the incubation of all your brilliant ideas. Mindfulness also strengthens the salience network, so that bright spark of creative insight doesn’t get lost in the crowd. Finally, mindfulness promotes cognitive function, helping you analyze and evaluate your project during the final phase of the creative process. As well as assisting with the mechanics of the creative process, mindfulness meditation will help you develop self-compassion and non-judgment. Because not all creative projects work out, and that’s okay. Mindfulness will help you develop insight into your own creative process and how you can reach your creative potential.

How Meditation Stimulates Creativity It might surprise you to hear that meditation can kickstart your creative process. After all, meditation is about getting chilled, right? Well, yes, meditation is often recommended for calming the mind and reducing your stress level, but it also has a physical effect on your brain. But how does this help creativity? Meditation and Your Brain The simple act of regular meditation frees up the parts of your brain that deal with memory, focus, and cognitive ability. Research has shown that the act of meditating stimulates the high-frequency brain waves that signal attention and perception—all qualities associated with creativity. The Creative Brain You probably know that your brain is a complex machine. It has built up capacity over millions of years, but not all the historical layers are as useful as they were when humans were hanging out in caves, alert for the sound of saber-tooth tigers. The ‘newest’ part of your brain is the neocortex. That’s where the creative stuff happens: Envisioning, problem-solving, creative thinking, and strategizing. Great and useful for the modern world, right? But there are older parts of your brain that deal with survival (the reptile brain) and emotions (the limbic system) that can prevent the neocortex from getting on with its job. If you’re stuck in fight or flight mode due to lots of stress, or if you’re emotionally out of balance, those parts of the brain dominate and don’t allow your neocortex to get a look in. And that makes sense because if you are confronted with immediate danger, you need all your survival instincts working. But this response is no longer so useful in the twenty-first century. Basically, if you’re stressed out and unhappy, your brain figures you don’t have the luxury to get creative. Meditation as a Circuit Breaker Modern life has a way of keeping you permanently wired, with your reptile brain and your limbic system constantly overstimulated. Research has shown that mindfulness meditation is not just calming during your meditation session, it can reduce the hypervigilance of your reptile brain, even out your emotions and stimulate your neocortex. Mediation helps get you out of rigid thinking modes and allows you to start thinking in more creative and innovative ways. Cue better visioning, problem-solving, and strategizing. Meditation calms down your entire neural system and makes sure the neocortex gets all the resources it needs to get your creativity flowing.

7 Character Traits of Creative People Have you ever wondered what drives creative people? What makes them different? Creativity can challenge you, give you energy, and allow you to reach your full potential. And the good news is that your own innate creativity can be encouraged and developed if you choose to. Here are seven characteristics of creative people that you can incorporate in your own life. 1. Creative people are focused Highly creative people usually have high levels of energy and stay focused on their project for long periods. Even when they are out of the studio or away from the computer, their minds are still thinking about their creative work. 2. They hold onto a sense of wonder Creative people are often brilliant, but they don’t think they know everything. Just the opposite, they retain a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world. 3. Creative people work hard The stereotype of the writer or artist spending their time propping up a bar doesn’t hold up. Artists usually work long hours on a project, and they don’t stick to a nine to five schedule. Creatives are persistent and determined and totally focused on their work. 4. Creatives are not loners Research suggests that creative people often combine the best of extroversion and introversion. While most people tend to favor one or the other of these personality types, creative people combine elements of both. They find ideas and inspiration in their social interactions and then retreat to the studio to work their creative magic. 5. They are open and sensitive Creatives tend to be very empathic and sensitive. They are open to all the possibilities of the world and find inspiration everywhere. Sensitivity is necessary to be able to create artistically but can be a double-edged sword, leaving the artist vulnerable to criticism and rejection. 6. Creatives are not bound by assigned gender roles Research has shown that creative people tend to resist traditional rigid gender roles and stereotypes. They are open to the male and female characteristics of their personalities and draw on the strengths of both. 7. Creatives can daydream and be realistic The traditional picture of the daydreaming artist isn’t necessarily reflective of the creative mind. Creativity is grounded in imagination and daydreaming, seeing the possibilities and wondering ‘what if?’ But creative people are also very practical, and the next stage is testing the ‘what if’ idea to see if it works. Creative thinking is essential for innovative problem solving that works in the real world.