Imagine: Your creativity is a wildfire. A violent, all-consuming flame that grows and engulfs space with explosive power. Forests don’t magically light up from nothing. A fire starts with a spark, just like creativity. One of the main obstacles to creativity is the feeling that it is necessary to come up with a solution and describe it in great detail before starting to work on a task. All my creative projects were born from a small but perfect spark of inspiration. All creative tasks are reborn and change direction on the way to the final. The creative block is known in neuroscience as a dead end. This is a situation where the mind works on a conscious level and finds itself at a dead end. It is a stone in the middle of the road that cannot be removed by willpower. This is a connection that you want to make, but you can’t: like trying to remember the name of an old friend, coming up with a name for a newborn baby, or just not knowing what to write about the project. We all come across these blocks sometimes. When it is necessary to show creativity, it is very important to overcome or avoid them. More than 50% of working people perform tasks related to creativity in one way or another. Describe, invent, design, draw, color, recycle, etc. Create or transmit information in a new way. Everything new attracts our attention, and in the business world it usually makes a profit. In this sense, the creative process is a major engine in value creation. Although you spend most of your day doing routine tasks that don’t require creativity, there are often unfamiliar obstacles in the way. For them, there are no proven solutions, obvious explanations, or useful memories in the brain, so they require new ideas. In order to overcome the block and allow inspiration to come, there is nothing better than to mute the activity of the prefrontal cortex of the brain, responsible for conscious thoughts. The block can occur precisely because of the “noise” of the crust. Thanks to technology, we can capture the processes of the brain while a person is solving a variety of tasks. Dr. Mark Beeman of Northwestern University has discovered that 40% of the time we solve problems logically, trying out ideas one by one until one fits. The remaining 60% is accounted for by insights. They are characterized by the lack of any conscious progress in finding a solution that appears suddenly. As we have already found out, when considering the creative process, insights “rise” from the subconscious and arise in the strangest, most unusual places and at the wrong time, often when the brain is not busy solving a problem. When faced with a new problem, we most often apply strategies that have been effective in the past. This works well when a new problem is similar to an old one and creative solutions are not needed. But in most cases, it’s wrong to try to solve new problems in the old ways.: this hinders the search for the best options and leads to a dead end. We often find ourselves at a dead end due to the fact that erroneous decisions stand in the way of correct decisions. Getting out of there is like changing the direction of traffic on a narrow street: you have to stop to let cars going in the opposite direction pass. When you take a break from a problem, active and conscious forms of thinking subside, and you give the floor to the subconscious. For this reason, other people often find a solution to your problem: they are not stuck in your way of thinking and can look at the issue from a different angle. Once at a dead end, you need to do the opposite of what your intuition tells you — don’t try to increase your concentration on the problem for a long time. We need to do something completely different, something interesting and entertaining. This is the best way to inspire. Besides, the more you think about the problem, the more anxious you become. Beeman drew attention to the fact that people experiencing Internet sites have increased activity in the anterior part of the right temporal lobe of the brain. This area directly under the right ear belongs to the right hemisphere. It is responsible for holistic thinking and collects data from the farthest parts of the brain. And I imagine distant drawers that open and close, spilling out ideas, and these ideas combine into new concepts in the anterior part of the right temporal lobe. One and a half seconds before the epiphany, the brain is at rest. This is followed by a sudden and prolonged increase in alpha wave activity in the right occipital lobe, the area that processes visual information. This sudden activity of alpha waves subsides exactly at the moment of epiphany. It seems that this way the brain shuts down any activity related to visual function, reduces the level of visual noise. “Shut up, I’m thinking.” It’s happened to everyone: you’re talking to someone, and suddenly their gaze starts to wander, and the person himself looks distracted. Thus, the brain turns off a lot of visual data in order to concentrate on subtle signals. Apparently, without this shutdown, there will be no enlightenment. At the moment of enlightenment, gamma waves appear in the brain. This happens 30 milliseconds before the solution comes to mind. These waves are the fastest brain waves. They are created by a group of neurons that “light up” at the same time. The activity of gamma waves means that different areas of the brain establish a connection with each other. By analogy with Kandel’s theory, imagine boxes that open and close at different points in the brain. This is how ideas that at first glance have nothing in common are combined, and as a result, an epiphany occurs. People in deep meditation have a huge frequency of gamma waves, those who are difficult to learn have low activity, and those who are unconscious or in a coma have no activity at all. Epiphany is accompanied by a powerful explosion of energy, it is noticeable in people’s faces, their voice and body language. Such a person feels good, he is almost euphoric. In this short-lived peak of activity, a person is most motivated and is not afraid to take certain risks. As soon as the neurochemical cocktail ends, motivation quickly drops. Therefore, after enlightenment, you need to start acting as soon as possible. There is a very close connection between the emotional state and insights. Happiness increases the possibility of their occurrence, and anxiety decreases. When we are nervous, brain activity increases, which makes it difficult to recognize subtle signals, and it is these signals that lead to insight when the brain calms down. Research shows that people who have the most frequent epiphanies are more aware of their internal processes. They are able to observe their own thoughts and change their form of thinking as a result. Such people have better control over their minds and can calm them down. Any technique or discipline that allows us to get to know ourselves and develop our emotional intelligence will make us more creative. And you don’t have to pay more attention to the problem, focus harder, or be a genius. It’s easy to get trapped in a seemingly unsolvable problem, that is, in a dead end. In order to find a way out, it is worth putting the brain on pause, reducing its activity in order to prevent incorrect answers. It is necessary to listen to weak signals and allow the brain, which is at rest, that is, has minimal electrical activity, to create internal connections. Therefore, insights usually happen when you are relaxed or satisfied. Whenever possible, always try to relieve tension, push back the deadline, do something interesting, reduce anxiety, take a break and relax. Slow down the brain activity and see if there are any implicit connections. And in case of an epiphany, concentrate on it as quickly as possible before the energy disappears. Source: Estanislao Bahraja “Flexible Mind. How to see things differently and think outside the box”