How Meditation Stimulates Creativity?

How Meditation Stimulates Creativity
It might surprise you to hear that meditation can kickstart your creative process.
After all, meditation is about getting chilled, right? Well, yes, meditation is often
recommended for calming the mind and reducing your stress level, but it also has
a physical effect on your brain. But how does this help creativity?
Meditation and Your Brain
The simple act of regular meditation frees up the parts of your brain that deal
with memory, focus, and cognitive ability. Research has shown that the act of
meditating stimulates the high-frequency brain waves that signal attention and
perception—all qualities associated with creativity.
The Creative Brain
You probably know that your brain is a complex machine. It has built up capacity
over millions of years, but not all the historical layers are as useful as they were
when humans were hanging out in caves, alert for the sound of saber-tooth
tigers.
The ‘newest’ part of your brain is the neocortex. That’s where the creative stuff
happens: Envisioning, problem-solving, creative thinking, and strategizing. Great
and useful for the modern world, right?
But there are older parts of your brain that deal with survival (the reptile brain)
and emotions (the limbic system) that can prevent the neocortex from getting on
with its job. If you’re stuck in fight or flight mode due to lots of stress, or if you’re
emotionally out of balance, those parts of the brain dominate and don’t allow
your neocortex to get a look in. And that makes sense because if you are
confronted with immediate danger, you need all your survival instincts working.
But this response is no longer so useful in the twenty-first century. Basically, if
you’re stressed out and unhappy, your brain figures you don’t have the luxury to
get creative.
Meditation as a Circuit Breaker
Modern life has a way of keeping you permanently wired, with your reptile brain
and your limbic system constantly overstimulated. Research has shown that
mindfulness meditation is not just calming during your meditation session, it can
reduce the hypervigilance of your reptile brain, even out your emotions and

stimulate your neocortex. Mediation helps get you out of rigid thinking modes
and allows you to start thinking in more creative and innovative ways. Cue better
visioning, problem-solving, and strategizing.
Meditation calms down your entire neural system and makes sure the neocortex
gets all the resources it needs to get your creativity flowing.