photo by Obscenity
They say that humans only use 10% of their brain. I don’t know whether or not that’s true, but the following articles can help you increase the amount you use your noggin regardless of how much you use it now.
Note: This is part of the What I Learned on the Internet Series.
- Boost Your Brain – Want to know one way to improve your brain power? How about 50 ways to boost your brain’s performance instead?
- Wander to Creativity – Daydreaming may actually be more than just dreaming during the day, but it may be the mind working hard for you.
- Overclock Your Mind – Just like a CPU, your mind can be overclocked past it’s normal functioning range, but unlike a CPU, the brain will adjust overtime allowing you to continue to grow.
- Eat Smart to Be Smart – Certain foods are super when it comes to having a healthy brain.
- Use the Other Hand – Something as simple as using your other hand when brushing your teeth can help improve your brain and willpower.
- Hack Your Brain – Every few years it’s smart to upgrade your computer software to get the latest and greatest. You can do that with your brain to with some great mind-hacks to amp your brainpower.
According to an article in Fast Company adapted from the book Iconoclast, advances in neuroscience have shed new light on the key attributes of creativity. What amazes me is that many of the discoveries re-enforce the value of improv in stimulating the creative process.
Some of the main points on creativity:
- “The important elements for creative thinkers can be boiled down to this: Experience modifies the connections between neurons so that they become more efficient at processing information.”
- “In order to think creatively, you must develop new neural pathways and break out of the cycle of experience-dependent categorization.”
- “The surest way to provoke the imagination, then, is to seek out environments you have no experience with.”
Improv exercises can help you break out of the cycle by challenging you to think differently. Not only will the exercises themselves be unique and geared towards building a creative mind, but just doing something you aren’t experienced with will provoke the imagination.
If you want to create some of those neural pathways, try out some solo improv exercises you can do in the comfort of your own home or office. If you want to learn more about the creative process, I highly recommend picking up Iconoclast by Gregory Berns.
Source: Neuroscience Sheds New Light on Creativity by Gregory Berns. FastCompany, September 2008.
