The Science of Creativity & How to Enhance Creative Innovation

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In this episode, I explain how the brain engages in creative thinking and, based on that mechanistic understanding, the tools to improve one’s ability to think creatively and innovate in any area. I discuss how convergent and divergent thinking are essential for generating creative ideas and provide three types of meditation tools (open monitoring meditation, focused attention meditation & non-sleep deep rest; NSDR), which improve our ability to engage in these creative thinking patterns in specific and powerful ways. I also discuss how dopamine and mood contribute to the creative process and describe behavioral, nutritional and supplementation-based approaches for increasing dopamine to engage in creative thought and implementation. I explain how movement and storytelling (narrative) approaches can generate novel creative ideas and how substances like alcohol, cannabis, and psilocybin impact our creative ability. Excitingly, creativity is a skill that can be cultivated and enhanced; this episode outlines many tools to help anyone access creativity and apply creative patterns of thought to different domains of life.

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Timestamps

• 00:00:00 Creativity
• 00:04:30 ROKA, Thesis, LMNT, Momentous
• 00:08:51 What is Creativity?
• 00:11:16 Creativity in Visual Arts, Escher & Banksy
• 00:23:37 Neural Circuits of Creativity
• 00:31:58 AG1 (Athletic Greens)
• 00:33:13 Creative Ideas & Divergent Thinking
• 00:42:09 Testing Creative Ideas & Convergent Thinking
• 00:46:41 Dopamine, Convergent & Divergent Thinking Pathways
• 00:57:02 InsideTracker
• 00:58:06 Tool: Open Monitoring Meditation & Divergent Thinking
• 01:07:38 Tool: Focused Attention Meditation & Convergent Thinking
• 01:11:06 Mood, Creativity & Dopamine
• 01:16:00 Tool: Mood Calibrating, Caffeine & Dopamine
• 01:23:41 Dopamine Supplementation; L-Tyrosine, Caffeine
• 01:30:15 Tool: Non-Sleep Deep Rest, Mesocortical Dopamine & Divergent Thinking
• 01:43:13 Serotonin, Psylocibin & Creative Thinking
• 01:49:13 Alcohol & Autobiographical Scripting; Cannabis
• 01:52:04 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) & Creativity
• 01:54:45 Tool: Movement & Divergent Thinking
• 02:01:02 Tool: Narratives & Storytelling for Creativity
• 02:14:47 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Momentous, Neural Network Newsletter, Social Media