How to Get Better at Divergent Thinking and Convergent Thinking

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The positioning of divergent thinking and then convergent thinking close together more closely resembles what the creative process really is. I would encourage people who are interested in being more creative to try and do these on a somewhat regular basis, if not every day, than certainly a few times a week or more. If you're very consistent doing maybe five minutes of open monitoring meditation and five minutes immediately after a focused attention meditation daily, you can expect that you will get very, very good at these processes very, very quickly.

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.