Hiero, the king of Sicily, commissioned a crown of solid gold from a goldsmith. After receiving it, Hiero suspected that the goldsmith had mixed some less costly silver in with the gold. The king hired Greek mathematician Archimedes to verify his suspicions. Archimedes accepts the challenge and begins to think of a way to test the crown’s authenticity. One day, while in the bath, he realized that the more his body sank in the water, the more water was displaced – making the displaced water an exact measure of his volume. With that realization, he recognized that he could test the density of the crown and then know whether it was made of pure gold. Legend has it that Archimedes was so excited that he ran out of the bath shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” Or, in English, “I’ve found it!” I’ve found it!”
Helen Keller describes a similar moment when Anne Sullivan was pouring water over her hands and signing into them. All of a sudden, she said, “I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten – a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I know then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living joy awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!”
Everyone knows how great that eureka moment is – when you’ve been working so hard on something and all of a sudden you “magically” come up with a solution. Neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman call these flashes of insight “aha moments.” And, in their book The Eureka Factor: Aha Moments, Creative Insight, and the Brain, they explain that there is a science behind those revelatory moments. With that science, we can attempt to “coax” more of those moments into our lives.
The Science Behind Aha Moments
As neuroscientists with access to new forms of brain scans, Kounios and Beeman gave subjects three words and asked them what the connection was. While they were doing these puzzles, the experimenters measured their brain activity. For instance, Kounios and Beeman gave subjects these three words:
SAUCE, PINE, CRAB
If you thought “apple” (apple sauce, pineapple, crab apple) you most likely had an aha moment. That means you felt a bit of joy and confidence mixed with a sense of accomplishment. The brain scans of people who solved the puzzle with a flash of insight showed a burst of activity in the right temporal lobe in the moment of realization. But, that’s not all the brain scans showed. Leading up to this aha moment in the brain, Kounios explains that there were a series of “preparatory” activities: there was a brief blinking in the visual part of the brain right before the insight. If we think of how some people close their eyes as they attempt to answer a difficult question, this blinking in the visual cortex makes a lot of sense!
Cultivating Creativity
If we understand the science behind moments of insight, does that mean that we can have them whenever we feel like it? Unfortunately, there’s no trick to spark an epiphany. There are, however, a lot of ways that you can prep your mind for one. In other words, there are ways we can get brains into the optimal situation for an aha moment. I’ve detailed some of them below:
Sleep. Who would have guessed that sleeping would do so much for creativity? Sleep helps you come up with new ideas because the brain rearranges the information that you’ve accumulated throughout the day. Giving your brain time to process the information and then return to it again the next day allows you to approach it from a new angle.
Do something mindless. Take a shower, go fishing or sew a sweater. Activities that involve your body but not your brain help you give your brain the downtime it needs to reset. Think of the Archimedes story from above – but you don’t need to take a bath! You just need to let your mind work in a relaxed and unfocused manner.
Get out of your comfort zone. Move to another country, take up a new language, or begin a new project. Doing new challenging things can force your brain out of its thinking habits. This can trigger new and creative thoughts.
Surround yourself with blue. Research shows that the color red makes us anxious, while the color blue relaxes us. Aha moments happen when we are relaxed and open to new ideas. Paint your office blue or buy some blue accent pieces. The color will relax you and help you get those creative juices flowing.
Get out in the open. Working in a small cubicle will narrow your thinking. Every once in a while, take a walk outside and attempt to do some work in open spaces. This will broaden your thinking.
Laugh. Brain studies show that when people are in good moods they are more likely to have aha moments. So, spend time doing things that make you happy. You’ll be more creative and innovative in the long run.
Innovation is happening all around us. You can be an innovator. You can have those aha moments that leave you joyful and confident. You just need to prep your brain to get to those eureka moments.
Register now for an anxiety workshop by Dr. Paul Foxman on November 17. Please call Mrs. Schonfeld at 718-382-5437 for more information