Can you improve your creativity?

Imagine you are a doctor and one of your patients is about to die from a tumour. You are unable to
perform surgery but you do have a high intensity ray gun which can destroy the tumour.
Nevertheless, at its highest intensity, the ray will also damage the healthy tissue it passes through.
And if you lower the intensity of a ray with the aim of keeping the surrounding tissue safe, the
energy of your gun will no longer be enough to remove the actual tumour. The question is, how can
you get rid of the tumour without damaging the healthy tissue?

Now, stop reading and think about the solution for a moment.

If you failed to come up with a way of fulfilling the task, dont worry. Only 3 out of 100
people can. Solution is very clever. Arrange ten ray guns around the patient and set the intensity
of each at 10%. This way, guns low intensity won't damage the healthy tissue but their combined
radiation will be enough to remove the tumour. To come up with such an answer, creative insights
are required. Therefore, we can safely conclude that creativity is not limited to artsy things; it is
important to almost every aspect of our lives ranging from science to business ideas. In fact,
International Business Machines Corporation 's 2010 survey of CEOs infers that creativity is
ranked as the most important quality for success. With all this being said, here are the top 3 tips
that will surely help you improve your creativity for your future endeaviours:

1) Relax

Ever wondered why so many good ideas are believed to come during long showers? Well, when
we concentrate on one specific thing, our minds only focus on that one issue and we end up in a
narrow tunnel that prevents us from thinking outside of the box. On the contrary, when we relax our
spectrum of attention broadens, we consider a wider range of possibilities and seemingly random
thoughts enter our minds. Multiple studies have linked broadened attention to creativity but the
most interesting one proves that subjects with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder perform
better in creative tests and have more real life creative achievements than those without such
disorders. This study shows that their attention deficit actually helps them create more original
ideas. Having realised this fact, companies like Google encourage their employees to take a break
whenever they feel stuck. However, while all of the aforementioned is true, under no circumstances
go off limits and lose your focus entirely.

2) Dont be afraid to risk.

Quite often, the fear of making mistakes stops us from unleashing our full potential and being truly
creative. Consider this study: a freestyle rapper got into a Functional Magnetic Resonance
Imaging scan and started rapping. As a result, a significant decrease of activity was observed in
the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex - the part of our brains responsible for self-monitoring and
inhibition. The similar process occurs when jazz players are asked to improvise. As a matter of fact,
people who are more susceptible to pressure are less likely to be creative. But the good news is
that even merely telling people to embrace their individualism and independence leads to a higher
level of creativity. These facts support the idea that creativity isn't a talent you're born with but it
rather is a skill that can be sharpened overtime. So, dare to be creative and don't worry about
making mistakes on the way.

3) Just take a nap.

Surprisingly, taking a nap increases your chances of breaking through a creative block.
Participants one experiment were given a certain problem and had to find the hidden abstract rule
behind it. Compared to those who stayed awake, people who slept for a while and then returned to
the task were twice as likely to achieve progress. Psychologists believe that the incubation effect
has a role in the said phenomenon. When we take a break, our mind continues working
unconsciously and recombines thoughts to produce new ideas., In fact, Paul McCartney himself
claimed that the melody of Yesterday first appeared in his dream. All in all, this advice might
sound a bit fake and pseudosciency but meta-analysis of about 30 different studies on the
incubation effect proves it definitely influences the level of ones creativity. So, take either a break or
a nap next time you need to think outside the box.

I hope the provided steps will help you during the session and will come in handy in your everyday
lives as well. However, I would still highly discourage you from taking a nap in the middle of your
committee work.