"I'm just not creative", "My brain doesn't work that way". For those of you who profess not to have a creative bone in your body, author Betsy Tobin begs to differ. Creativity, she says, is within us all - and there's a science to it too...
Betsy Tobin on the key to creativity.
Is creativity inherited? Divinely inspired? The stuff of genius? Or just dumb luck?
In fact, creativity is hard-wired into each of us. We've all got that spark deep inside: we just need to access it. I'm a writer and over the years I've done a lot of teaching. Time and again I've found myself telling students that the imagination is like a muscle: if you don’t flex it often and vigorously, it will atrophy.
I learned this intuitively from my own cycles of productivity: the longer I went without working, the harder I found it to kick-start my creativity. But that wasn't the only thing I noticed. Certain conditions inhibited the flow of ideas: tiredness, stress, depression and anger were all barriers to creativity. While others seemed to help: sleep, fresh air, exercise, nature (trees especially!) laughter and learning – all helped unblock my imagination.
In recent years, science has begun to understand why. The chemistry of creativity is directly affected by the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that relay signals between nerve cells in our brain, channeling information throughout our bodies. Some act to stimulate the brain, while others stabilise and balance it. Serotonin is one of the latter: it regulates memory, learning, sleep and mood, among other things. So if we're feeling happy and fulfilled, serotonin is probably why. Bright light, exercise and a good night’s sleep all increase serotonin, while the use of stimulants such as caffeine can deplete it.
Certain conditions inhibited the flow of ideas: tiredness, stress, depression and anger were all barriers to creativity. While others seemed to help: sleep, fresh air, exercise, nature (trees especially!) laughter and learning – all helped unblock my imagination.
Dopamine belongs to the 'excitatory' class of neurotransmitters, and famously gets blamed for a host of society’s ills (eg. lust, addiction) because it controls our reward and pleasure centres. It also regulates movement and emotional response, and helps us concentrate. Exercise, sleep, diet (bananas, almonds, avocados) and anything rich in anti-oxidants increases dopamine.
The more dopamine and serotonin whooshing around our brains, the more easily we will access our creativity, which really is more likely to emerge from the right hand side of our head. This is because the branched extensions of nerve cells on the right reach further than those on the left, so are better at drawing together distant pieces of information. It is this juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated things that often leads to a ‘eureka moment’ of creative insight.
Apart from sleep, exercise, fresh air, and diet, what else can we do to stoke our creativity? Anything that reduces stress and relaxes us will help. Laughter works, as does alcohol (moderate!). Both increase our ability to make connections by inhibiting our focus, which has the perverse effect of stimulating our imagination. For the same reason, daydreaming and boredom can be productive. (This may be why Einstein once described creativity as 'the residue of time wasted.'). The colour blue also leads to better associative thinking, funnily enough - which may just explain Picasso's blue period.
But why should we even want to develop our creativity? Because there are all kinds of knock-on benefits, both for our minds and for our bodies. Creativity gives us a sense of purpose, balance and order. It engages us and helps us engage with others. This is true for everyone, but it is especially true for older people. Studies show that creative activity among the ageing fosters a sense of competence, purpose and growth. We stay healthier longer and enjoy ourselves more, make fewer doctors’ visits, take fewer meds and are more sociable.
So as we grow older, we should 'grow' our creative selves. Buy yourself a box of crayons, a beautiful journal, or a ukulele – and see what happens!
Betsy's new book Things We Couldn't Explain is published by Accent Press and is available now from Amazon.
By Betsy Tobin
Twitter: @BetsyTobin
I think you'd need to eat an awful lot of bananas to increase the amount of dopamine in your brain. 
But I'm sure the book is a very enjoyable light read. 
I thought I didn't have a creative bone in my body. Until I read a few years ago that cooking activates the part in your brain that deals with creativity. Also housework and how you add attention to detail. I'm not a domestic goddess, but I do approach both with a positive mental attitude
If serotonin enhances creativity, how come so many authors/poets/artists seem to have suffered from depression 
...?
I wonder if the need for more serotonin is what subconsciously drives depressed people, who are authors/poets/artists, to work harder at being creative? 
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