Friends,
Well it was!
All three of the journal articles I've cited for this post agree that open-monitoring meditation primes our minds for idea generation, which is a crucial part of the creative process according to expert Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman's recent article for Scientific American.
I'm going to describe open-monitoring meditation, talk about why scientists think it works, then provide a guided audio meditation from an expert to get you going (The audio file is at the top and bottom of this page).
What is Open-Monitoring Meditation?
Open-monitoring meditation is like a kind of attentive daydreaming, where the meditator allows her awareness to settle on whatever feelings, thoughts or sensations come across her mind’s eye. She doesn’t get attached to any one idea; she lets herself flow non-judgmentally from one thought to another. She simply sits quietly and notices where her mind travels. The practice generally lasts about 20 minutes and has been linked to a host of health/mood benefits.
The Science
The most relevant metric in these studies is the Alternate Use Task (AUT), which is a test Psychologists use “to objectively measure the generation of new ideas." Here's how it works: First the AUT presents an everyday Item, like a white handkerchief. Next, the participant attempts to generate as many alternative uses for the item as possible, like "waving it as a white flag" or "using it to play peek-a-boo." Lastly the responses are counted and rated for their originality. It's like an on the spot idea generation improv and it's commonly used by creativity psychologists.
I'm going to keep it pithy and fun here, but massive amounts of information was collected and there is a clear take away: Open-monitoring meditation provides a robust creativity boost and researchers found that prior meditative experience was unnecessary.
Wow. I think this ought to be overwhelmingly exciting for creative types looking to experiment with their method and improve their output.
In conclusion, and a guided meditation.
In full honesty, I used to think meditation was a bunch of hippie-dippie new-age poppycock. It was a dirty word for me and I never got serious about forming the habit.
But in recent years there's been an avalanche of studies and articles published on the benefits of these ancient practices. I think it's hard for any science-minded person to scoff at the genuine good meditation can do. .
So if you're a creative type or just someone who wants to benefit from all the health/mood benefits meditation has to offer - sit and give the following audio recording a listen. Try it for at your leisure for a week or two. See if it helps you somehow.
You might find it tranquilizing, you may experience a boost in your creative output... or hell it may just seem totally boring and silly! Whatever the case may be, you experimented and made an effort at being open to new experiences (which is a top predictor of creative success.)
Bio: Taylor Kreiss is a positive psychology writer and coach on a mission to share the art and science of the good life. He consults businesses in how to bring positive psychology into the workplace, coaches one-on-one to help individuals reach their peak performance and he writes for Creativity/Philosophy/Positive Psychology blogs. He also loves connecting, so please reach out to talk about potential collaboration taylorkreiss@yahoo.com And please check out his website if you want more articles like this one taylorkreiss.com
About the guided meditation creator: Rebecca Nyquist has been practicing yoga and meditation for close to a decade, she trained in Hatha Yoga at Princeton and has completed the Mindfulness Based Stress Management Program at Penn. She leads the weekly mindfulness meditation at UPenn and works to spread awareness about the many benefits of the practice.
