HOW SLEEP AFFECTS CREATIVITY
HOW SLEEP AFFECTS CREATIVITY
Creative types have all kinds of theories about sleep. Night owls claim they do their best work in the middle of the night. Early risers insist people are missing out on the most creative part of the day if they aren’t getting out of bed at 5 a.m. It turns out that neither the night owls nor the early risers are sleeping enough. Only one-third of adults get at least eight hours of sleep per night, according to the World Health Organization. You’ve probably already read that sleep deprivation negatively affects your health, your productivity, and your mood. The amount and quality of sleep you get affects creativity, too.
If you’re wondering why you’re in a creative rut, the answer might be simple: you may need more shut eye. Sleeping boosts creativity by helping you solve difficult problems and giving you space to combine facts you already know into new ideas.
Sleeping can help you solve difficult problems.
Sleeping can help you solve difficult problems.
When people suggest that you “sleep on” a tough decision or problem, they’re actually giving great advice. Research suggests that the brain connects ideas, explores options, and wanders down different paths while it’s resting and not directly focusing on the problem. That’s why sometimes you wake up in the morning with a “eureka moment,” and you know what you should do or want to do to solve an issue you’ve been facing. Your brain can literally solve problems while it’s on autopilot.
REM sleep helps you put things you already know together in a new way.
REM sleep helps you put things you already know together in a new way.
“Creativity is being able to put together two different ideas, not just in a new way, but in an interesting, important, and useful way,” says Dr. Sara Mednick, a sleep researcher at the University of California. Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep helps you identify previously unrecognized connections between facts that you already know.
During REM sleep, a chemical called acetylcholine is released in the brain and allows connections between neurons to be more easily formed. This may “allow the neocortex to unconsciously search for similarities between seemingly unrelated concepts like, say, the way the planets revolve around the sun and the way electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom,” psychology professor Penny Lewis notes. REM sleep occurs on and off throughout the night, which is why it’s important to sleep long enough to experience multiple cycles of REM sleep.
Sleep on it.
Sleep on it.
Test this theory and sleep longer. Taking naps helps, too, as long as they’re 90+ minutes (long enough to experience REM sleep). “Even a soul submerged in sleep is hard at work and helps make something of the world,” pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote. What will you make of the world while you’re asleep?
