Waiting For That Life-Changing Idea? Just Sleep On It
History is peppered with tales of phenomenal ideas taking shape in sleeping minds; Paul McCartney said that he awoke with the tune of Yesterday in his head, and Robert Louis Stevenson said that the idea for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came to him in a dream.
But what exactly is going on in our minds while we sleep? Does slumber really prompt creative genius? And can the most uncreative of people receive flashes of inspiration once their head hits the pillow?
Scientists believe that the mind at night weaves together bits of information in innovative ways. Throughout the day your brain rarely gets a chance to stop and think.
In a state of constant alertness, it responds to a stream of challenges, from writing a report for a work deadline to remembering where you left your car keys and figuring out what to buy for dinner.
How to be inspiredLack of sleep kills creativity
According to Professor Foster, a good night’s sleep increases the likelihood of developing novel solutions to problems. If your grey matter won’t produce a solution to a vexing problem – sleep on it.Go to bed early
One study suggests that the most creative part of our sleeping occurs in the first half of the night, during slow-wave sleep. So if you need an answer to a solution and are short on time, it’s best to go to bed early and get up early, rather than to stay up late.Mull over a problem before you go to bed
Try to direct your creative powers by thinking about the problem you want to solve, but don’t fret over it – you won’t be able to sleep.Photo by kuypers.
stevieboy66 on November 28th, 2008 3:02 pm
Very interesting. I get involved helping small businesses with their business planning and one of my key recommendations is that they don’t attempt to sit down for hours trying to write a plan.
Instead they need to carry with them a pen and paper (or Blackberry as in my case) go for a walk and forget about the planning.
I guarantee them that if they walk for an hour they will have at least half a dozen flashes of inspiration that they can then record.
This is obviously analaogous with the idea of freeing the mind up through sleep, a walk being the next best thing.
Sonya on November 28th, 2008 3:34 pm
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cassy on November 29th, 2008 1:25 am
I agree… Sleeping is the best way to do so that you can create a nice idea. A person who is lack of sleep can’t rally create a nice idea.
There are many things happened if a person is lack of sleep. He can’t perform his job well and can’t concentrate on it.
Moo on November 29th, 2008 10:35 am
We already knows that because its advice of our prophet mohammed, in Islam, that when you faced by blockage in your thinking and you are not able to decide or to plan pray and aske god after pray then go directly to sleep without thinking too much over the issue, every thing will be very clear in your dream, and we call this method (Istekhara), you can aske any muslim he will told you about even the kids.
Jaclyn on December 2nd, 2008 1:47 pm
This was very interesting and believable. I know that a lot of morning’s i wake up with great idea’s for even something as small as how to get all my tasks done in one day sooner then usual. I think while were sleeping we have the most and best time to really think and mull over thing’s as there arnt really any distractions for us at that point.
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