How do you boost your creativity? We all want to be more creative. Some of us make our living through our creativity. Yet, dry periods occur when we need help with original ideas or innovative ways to solve everyday problems or work assignments. Here’s a look at some easy ways to boost your creativity.
Boost Your Creativity with These Helpful Tips
To boost your creativity, you don’t need an expensive gym membership or plunk down $10,000 for an exotic vacation. It is possible to get more creative by taking advantage of simple, easy-to-do, and readily available activities.
1. Take a Quick Catnap
A research team from Harvard and MIT studied the link between creativity and dreams. They focused on the N1 sleep stage. This is the sleep state where you transition from being awake into sleep. The study provided experimental evidence suggesting that dream content contributes positively to post-dreaming creativity.
Key takeaway: With prompting during the beginning of sleep, your dream experience can later be used in creative tasks.
2. Take the Stairs to Boost Your Creativity
Stair-climbing may not be your first thought to enhance creativity. But think about it. It is well known that aerobic exercise may spur creative thoughts. So researchers looked at whether climbing stairs did the same thing. Matsumoto et al. (2022) studied the effect of brief stair-climbing on creative thinking. They found that walking three flights of stairs round-trip boosted divergent thinking in healthy adults. Study participants generated about 61 percent more original “uses” after climbing the stairs than using the elevator.
Key takeaway: If you want a quick and straightforward way to help boost your creativity, take the stairs. It is efficient, helpful, and may take less time than the elevator.
3. Get Out There and Dance
Research published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (2022) studied the interaction of partners in tango dancing and the resulting co-creation of ideas. They found that creative moments arise from the tango leader’s or follower’s aspirations, even though the dancers execute moves together.
Creativity also results from the dancers’ give-and-take. This way, the tango dancers surprise, inspire, or enable each other. They also adjust activities in response to their partner. The interaction blends into joint creative improvisation.
Key takeaway: Dancing is fun and helps spur creative thinking. What a fantastic way to boost your creativity.
4. Enjoy Aerobic Exercise
Aga et al. (2021) investigated how vigorous aerobic exercise affected creative thinking and whether the effect was post-exercise mood-dependent. The study involved 40 healthy adults participating in a 15-minute aerobic exercise activity. Afterward, they were measured on thinking and problem-solving.
Results showed increased fluency and flexibility, proving enhanced divergent thinking that was not mood-dependent. Those with high vigor solved more insight problems, while those with low vigor were less able to resolve problems.
Key takeaway: Engage in vigorous aerobic exercise to jumpstart problem-solving and arrive at creative solutions.
5. To Boost Your Creativity: Sleep Well
Several studies have suggested that dream recall is associated with creativity, with a higher frequency linked with greater creativity, personality, and cognitive abilities. Here, Vallat et al. (2022) showed for the first time that “high dream recallers have a specific cognitive and brain functioning profile… which might, in turn, promote creativity and dreaming abilities.”
Key takeaway: We all must sleep. Try to cultivate the ability to recall our dreams. It may be an effortless way to boost your creativity. Plus, it gives you something to talk about with your friends.
6. Meditate to Boost Your Creativity
A meta-analysis by Haase et al. (2023) of methods to enhance creativity found that creativity can be improved. Meditation, complex training, and cultural exposure were the most effective in boosting creativity.
Key takeaway: Find some meditation classes on Zoom or enroll in meditation taught locally. Learning to meditate can unleash floodgates and boost your creativity.
7. Challenge Your Mind
Who doesn’t love a good mind puzzle? You can escape everyday tasks and problems. Whether it’s a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or quick quizzes, challenging your mind does more than relieve boredom. They can also open up new avenues of creativity that can change your life.
Key takeaway: Mind puzzles can be done as a family, with friends, or solo. They’re free, fun, and a terrific way to get your creative juices flowing.
8. Strike a Yoga Pose
Bollimbala et al. (2020) studied creativity and physical activity. Their focus was on Hatha yoga. They found a significant improvement in participants’ creative thinking with Hatha yoga.
Key takeaway: Yoga is one of the most popular complementary health practices for overall health and well-being. That yoga can help spur creativity makes it even more attractive.
9. Cultivate a Sense of Humor to Boost Your Creativity
I love good comedies. That’s why we watch sitcom reruns. Laughter is therapeutic. And the harder we laugh, the better it feels. Things tend to fall into perspective after a laugh session. This is the same reason people share jokes.
There’s research that backs this up. A 2022 study investigated the impact of laughter on university students’ creativity, well-being, affect, and grades. They found that a minute of laughter three times a day stimulates imagination and increases well-being. Grades also improve.
Key takeaway: Check out some half-hour sit-coms on TV for an excellent daily laugh. It will help you be more creative. You’ll also sleep better.
10. Walk in Nature
Many researchers study nature’s restorative benefits. Studies on creativity and the natural environment are increasing. In a 2021 study, researchers interviewed 20 British citizens about how relevant natural environments were for their creative activities, personally and professionally. The analysis of transcripts showed that affective, aesthetic, and cognitive appraisals were “directly relevant to creativity in nature.”
Key takeaway: No matter the season, getting out in nature is a delightful way to thrive. You’ll clear cobwebs in the brain, set aside problems, exercise well, and boost creativity.
