Dr Jack Lewis, Neuroformed
Train your brain to be more creative
Neuroscientist, author and TV presenter, Dr Jack Lewis, shared his advice on how to make the most of your brain’s creative abilities.
He looked to three of history’s greatest creative thinkers, finding working patterns and techniques that boosted their cognitive functions.
French mathematician and theoretical physicist Poincaré worked under very structured hours, dedicating two hours, twice a day to complicated mathematical calculations. Absolutely no distractions were allowed during this time.
Easy alternative: Set out of office notifications for the same time or day each week, so you can work without distraction. Avoid spending your most productive hours, which are early in the morning, on low-level tasks like emails. Focus on the big things first.
Over his lifetime, Edison wrote 1093 patents, often using hypnagogia to aid his creative thinking. Hypnagogia is the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep, a time of deep thought processing.
To access thoughts at the point, Edison caught himself at the moment just before falling asleep. To do it, he held ball bearings, which dropped to the floor when he fell asleep, waking him back up.
Easy alternative: Set an alarm for 20 minutes giving you enough time to enter a hypnogogic state and re-awake in time to capture your thoughts. Dig around in your thoughts and scribble down anything that surfaces.
The ancient Greek mathematician and inventor, Archimedes, resolved the problem of how to measure the volume of an object when he stepped into the bath and watched the water level rise by the same volume as his body.
This ‘Eureka’ moment didn’t come to Archimedes when he was deep in thought, but during a restful state.
Easy alternative: Set yourself regular time aside to switch off from the tyranny of emails of constant run of thoughts. Meditation, mindful breathing and exercise are all great ways to do this.