Dopamine Release in the Brain

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The study found that people who did self directed deep relaxation, lying their eyes closed, relatively motionless, had a 65% increase in dopamine release. Theta activity is a pattern of brainwave activity that's commonly associated with creative states and divergent thinking for the sake of creative exploration. When we're moving, we can pay attention to things in the outside world but not visual imagery within our head. Whereas when we lie down or sit down and close our eyes and we are motionless, the degree of visual imagery really increases.

In this episode, I explain how the brain engages in creative thinking and, based on that mechanistic understanding, the tools to improve one’s ability to think creatively and innovate in any area. I discuss how convergent and divergent thinking are essential for generating creative ideas and provide three types of meditation tools (open monitoring meditation, focused attention meditation & non-sleep deep rest; NSDR), which improve our ability to engage in these creative thinking patterns in specific and powerful ways. I also discuss how dopamine and mood contribute to the creative process and describe behavioral, nutritional and supplementation-based approaches for increasing dopamine to engage in creative thought and implementation. I explain how movement and storytelling (narrative) approaches can generate novel creative ideas and how substances like alcohol, cannabis, and psilocybin impact our creative ability. Excitingly, creativity is a skill that can be cultivated and enhanced; this episode outlines many tools to help anyone access creativity and apply creative patterns of thought to different domains of life.

For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com.