There are times in everyone’s life when they are at their most creative. During these periods, words may effortlessly pour forth to become the contents of your first book or the blank canvas upon which your paint transforms into a visual masterpiece with seemingly little resistance. These periods of flow and heightened creativity can allow you to express the contents of your inner landscape to the world or conjure new ideas and inventions out of thin air.
If only this elusive essence were a reliable and constant source which you could access at will. However, as every poet, musician or artist of any kind knows, creativity can be fickle, and there may be times when the dreaded creative block seems to overshadow your attempts to innovate or inspire. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to boost your creativity as this article will explore below.
Day Dream
Instead of focusing on the problem, allow yourself to let go of thinking and get out of the rigid confines of your mind by daydreaming. Whether it’s gazing out of the window, watching the clouds go by or imagining you’re a superhero flying off to your home planet, daydreaming has been found to engage diverse parts of the brain and has been shown to expand levels of creativity.
Stimulate Your Senses
Reawaken your senses by stimulating them with new colors, sights and sounds. This could be as simple as creating your own vision board on your computer, or cutting out images from magazines and gluing them into a scrapbook to inspire you towards your goals or a new artistic endeavor. Try some city photography by taking your camera out with you, capturing images that catch your eye, using different techniques and playing with angles as well as light and shade.
Surround yourself with creativity through stimulating environments or by seeking out experiences that will inspire you such as visiting an art festival where you can immerse yourself in different artistic styles and mediums ranging from visual art such as paintings and sculpture to music, theater and dance.
Spend Time in Nature
A 2012 study explored the effect of spending more time immersed in nature as opposed to engaging with media and technology resulting in improved creative reasoning and problem-solving abilities. It was found that the state of ‘soft fascination’ associated with natural environments allows our system to replenish itself and helps calm the prefrontal cortex which allows the brain access to new ideas and insights.
The sense of wonderment or awe which nature inspires can also help you to think more expansively and see things with a fresh pair of eyes or from different perspectives. If you feel you are in a creative rut try spending some time with Mother Nature. Whether it’s pitching your tent in the wood for the weekend staring up at the night stars or smelling the roses in your local national park, spending time in new and natural settings may be the antidote to your creative block.
Blue Boost Creativity
Ideas and inspiration are said to come ‘out of the blue’ for a reason. Perhaps it is because this color has been found to be the best color for boosting our ability to think creatively. A color psychology study from the University of British Columbia has found that the color blue encourages people to be creative by thinking outside of the box. Due perhaps to its association with the sky or the ocean, blue is also connected with feelings of openness, tranquility and peace which helps people to feel safe to explore and be creative.
Meditation
From Google to Goldman Sachs, many leading organizations are introducing meditation and other mindfulness practices to help their employees be more creative. By activating divergent thinking, such practices can help you open your mind to new ideas. In addition to mindfulness techniques, short term meditation sessions have also been shown to be effective in boosting creativity.
By letting go of thoughts and resting in awareness you can begin to access the creative parts of your mind that are otherwise preoccupied with the stresses of the day. By balancing the left and right hemispheres of the brain, meditation can also facilitate ‘whole brain synchronization’ which can help maximize creativity.
Follow the tips in this article to help ignite your creative spark and allow this part of your mind to flourish once more.