“[Our studies found that]\u00a0Open Monitoring meditation induces a control state that promotes divergent thinking, a style of thinking that allows many new ideas of being generated. Second, Focused Attention\u00a0meditation does not sustain convergent thinking, the process of generating one possible solution to a particular problem.<\/span>”\u00a0~\u00a0Colzato, Lorenza S.\u00a0et al.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Dr. Lorenza Colzato is a cognitive scientist and researcher at the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition in the Netherlands. Her recent research\u00a0revealed that\u00a0meditation\u00a0can boost your creativity. Specifically, Colzato\u00a0found that open monitoring meditation (such as when you notice different thoughts and feelings) improves divergent thinking, which is the kind of thought process that helps you brainstorm many ideas. Further, she suspects that meditation enhances\u00a0creative thinking by improving people’s moods. We asked her a few questions about her research, which you can read in full here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
What inspired your research?<\/h4>\n
Steve Jobs,\u00a0who is a very inspirational person.\u00a0He is arguably one of the most creative minds of our time and he dedicated his life to Soto Zen Buddhist meditation practice.<\/p>\n
Steve Jobs has often referred to meditation as the main source of creativity. So, I wanted to test the idea that indeed meditation makes you more creative.<\/p>\n
What practical insights can someone take from your study?<\/h4>\n
The practical lesson for people is that if they need to do a brain storm session at work, they could do an open monitoring meditation (such as Vipassana) before it. By doing so, they will be able \u00a0to generate even more new ideas. So, in this respect practitioners could change \u201cwhen\u201d they meditate.<\/p>\n
Do you have any future research planned?<\/h4>\n
Currently we are investigating how much practice is necessary to obtain meditation effects on creativity and whether this effect is due to a trait (of being an individual interested in meditation), a state (ad-hoc induced by meditation), or both. To test for these possibilities, we are comparing a group of practitioners and a group of novices.<\/p>\n
[Tweet “Meditation For Creativity: an interview with cognitive scientist <\/span>@<\/span>LorenzaColzato”]<\/p>\n
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Sign up\u00a0to receive free chapters and interviews included in Lift’s book:\u00a0The Strongest Mind in the Room “[Our studies found that]\u00a0Open Monitoring meditation induces a control state that promotes divergent thinking, a style of thinking that allows many new ideas of being generated. Second, Focused Attention\u00a0meditation does not sustain convergent thinking, the process of generating one… <\/p>\n