Exploring Your Creative Genius: Episode 133
Last week’s show explored the brain and how it achieves a creative state. One point made and developed more fully here is that our brains are most creative when both hemispheres are working together. Yes, different areas of the brain specialize in particular functions but complex activities like creativity require a collaborative effort from both hemispheres—regions specialize and constantly coordinate and share information with other regions.
Good old neuroplasticity tells us what fires together wires together so we would expect that using your brain for creative thinking and action would result in more connections between the two hemispheres, improving subsequent creative thinking, and that’s exactly what the research finds.
So yes, the left hemispheres handles analytical, logical, and verbal tasks, like planning, or organizing your creative work.
And the right hemisphere is associated with conceptual, holistic and imaginative thinking.
As an example of the hemispheres integrated efforts let’s use one of my favorite activities, writing. The left hemisphere is crucial for structure and language while the right hemisphere brings tone and emotion and imaginative storytelling.
When you take a walk and reach your natural rhythmic stride, your two hemispheres integrate and you’re better at idea generation than when you are sitting in your chair.
Don’t have time for a walk? (Please find time for a walk.) Here’s another way to integrate your brain.
Stare straight ahead and don’t move your head as you look as far to the right as you can, hold for a 5 count, return to look straight ahead, and then look as far to the left as you can for a 5 count. Repeat that 5 times.
“Exploring Your Creative Genius” takes an expansive view on what it means to be creative and entrepreneurial in an ongoing conversation led by Carl Nordgren — entrepreneur, novelist, and lifelong student with decades of experience growing his own creative capacity and assisting others to do the same in exciting new ways!
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