How a few minutes’ exercise can unleash creativity – even if you hate it

Can exercise boost creativity? Illustration: Tim Bouckley/The Guardian

If you often find yourself dawdling away the day, frustrated that your brain won’t click into gear, then the answer to your mind’s logjam may well actually lie in your legs. Need to get your creative juices flowing? Get moving. A long line of influential thinkers have instinctively moved their bodies to open their minds, from Darwin, who advanced his theory of evolution while accumulating laps of his “thinking path”, to Nietzsche, who in 1888 warned: “Do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement.” And now scientists are not just confirming the link between exercise and creativity, but unpicking precisely how it works. In this investigation, Sam Pyrah speaks to the experts drawing ever-stronger links between physical exercise and creative output. “Even a single, brief bout of aerobic exercise can ignite creative thinking,” Dr Chong Chen of Yamaguchi University, Japan, tells her. Creative thinking can be divided into two aspects – the drawing of associations between unrelated things that is the creation of ideas, known as divergent thinking, and the weighing up of the value of such ideas, known as convergent thinking. Studies have demonstrated that the former is stimulated by everything from dancing and running to simply walking up stairs. As Amir-Homayoun Javadi, a reader in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Kent, explains: “When performed regularly, aerobic activity can trigger structural changes, such as increased brain volume, particularly of the hippocampus, which benefit many aspects of cognition. This gives the brain more potential to be creative.” + Read more: All it takes is a quick walk’: how a few minutes’ exercise can unleash creativity – even if you hate it

What is important?

Mary Ann Niemczura, born in Massachusetts, reared in Colorado and now living in Upstate New York, looks at three things which she finds  important to her and were she grow up in Massachusetts and in Colorado: Family, Faith, and Education.

In this world were morals, ethics and values are gone it is not bad to stand still for a moment and to wonder what made us unto what we are today.

Let us never forget those who are behind our making process, our parents, teachers, guides, and all the material which came under our eyes (books, theatre pieces, films, artefacts, …)

Like me she grew up in a time when education was still valued and probably the teachers still respected. At a new years dinner for municipal staff I was questioned about the use of musical education and playing an instrument. In the past that was considered as an asset and helpful to have the brains growing in a good way. The gift of music and diligent practice are very much helping the brain to develop so that there is gain on different fronts for other schoolsubjects as well as analytic and creative thinking.  The author has good reason to

belief that children who play a musical instrument including voice have a better chance of success in school.  They learn to listen and to read as well as to memorize more quickly.

Also the religious upbringing may help to create a decent personality which is respectful to nature and all those living on this globe. Learning from the Holy Scriptures not only gives a good formation for our relationships with others, it also shall make us a better person, not only believing in the Creator but also believing in the self, which shall give more confidence to tackle certain tasks and to withstand certain counteraction or thwart.

To have hope for the future we have to work at it that others also come to understand the reasons why we should have certain values, cherish and nourish certain morals. Like in previous times it is still important to be involved with those around us, to read to the children, to give ethical and/or religious education and to practice faith with those who are near to us. Parents and educators do have to send a very clear message that education should be at the top of the list after family and faith.

Then we might have fewer morally bankrupt persons in society.

++

Additional reading

1. Too many pupils for not enough teachers
2. A learning process for each of us
3. Passion and burn out of a teacher

+++

Related articles

• Those are some pipes: Immense organ’s restoration underway
• The World’s first complete miniature symphony orchestra printed in 3-D!
• Those are some pipes: Immense organ’s restoration underway
• Missing Out of the Orchestra – De Mello
• North Cyprus – Television News from BRT2 with Miray Çakır – 15th Dec 2015
• The latest social science is wrong. Religion is good for families and kids
• Colorado’s new education commissioner supports school choice
• Nicola Benedetti backs free music lesson plea
• We are all somehow believers
• John ‘Bill’ Hosie dead; retired Northport High physics teacher was 91

Dr. Mary Ann Niemczura

Three things are important to me and were growing up in Massachusetts and in Colorado.

Family-we had the luxury of a stay at home mom which I believe made all the difference in growing up.  We did not have babysitters come in.  My parents were simply always there for all of us children.  These were simpler times in the 40s and 50s when families made do with less.  I remember my parents growing most of the fruits and vegetables we needed.  My mother canned a lot for the winter months.  We kept potatoes in cold storage in the basement in Massachusetts.  We were happy and well fed.  Our mother sewed most of our clothes as well.  We knew we were well loved.

Faith-we attended church regularly which formed a strong foundation for our character and beliefs. We participated in religious education at church as well.  Parents who give…

View original post 199 more words