Over the next 60 days I'll be dedicating myself to daily meditation (twice a day for about 10 minutes at a time) and a daily walk (for at least 30 minutes). There's so much evidence that these two things will boost your creativity that I figured I had to give it a shot. I decided on doing them both for 60 days because most evidence suggests that to create a lasting habit you have to do something for about 60 days. Frankly, both walking and meditation are habits I wouldn't mind getting hooked on. Check out some of the links below for info about walking and meditation and how they can enhance your creativity. I'll let you know how things progress for me.
WALKING
"Across the board, creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for those walking compared to those sitting."
This was taken from an article about the ways walking helps with creative thinking. You can find the link here: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/walking-vs-sitting-042414.html
Or what about this quote taken from an article in The New Yorker:
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live!” Henry David Thoreau penned in his journal. “Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” Thomas DeQuincey has calculated that William Wordsworth—whose poetry is filled with tramps up mountains, through forests, and along public roads—walked as many as a hundred and eighty thousand miles in his lifetime, which comes to an average of six and a half miles a day starting from age five.
Here's the link to the full article: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/walking-helps-us-think
Or what about this bit:
“Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas,” said J.K. Rowling. Pyschology Today likens exercises like walking to dreaming, drawing a parallel between the REM dream state and the meditative-like state attained by exercise.
“Neuroscientists have identified that the non-thinking ‘default state‘ of consciousness is key to creative thinking,” writes athlete and author Christopher Bergland. “Exercise allows your conscious mind to access fresh ideas that are buried in the subconscious.”
Here's the link for the rest of the article: http://www.writingandwellness.com/2014/03/06/what-famous-writers-know-about-walking/
MEDITATION
The Walt Disney Company was an early adopter of meditation in the workplace, as they noticed a dramatic increase in creativity after employees meditated on creative solutions. General Mills is another company which reports improved innovation as a result of sitting in stillness and has meditation rooms available to their staff. Google has an in house mindfulness program called 'Search inside Yourself' and has built a labyrinth for mindful walking meditations.
This was taken from a great piece in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bianca-rothschild/the-science-of-how-medita_b_5579901.html
“Be yourself,” Oscar Wilde once said. “Everyone else is taken.” But it’s not always easy, especially if you’re trying to do it in words.
By consciously quieting the chatter of our surface mind, we claim our authentic and essential self—the indefinable essence that makes us unique, different from everyone else whoever lived. And as we claim this self more fully, we become more open to expressing it.
Another interesting article about the connection between meditation and creativity: http://janefriedman.com/2012/01/02/meditation-increases-creativity/
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