{"id":4002,"date":"2015-08-11T10:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T08:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hatrabbits.com\/?p=4002"},"modified":"2023-11-21T15:27:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T14:27:09","slug":"why-sleep-deprivation-is-not-the-key-to-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hatrabbits.com\/en\/why-sleep-deprivation-is-not-the-key-to-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Why sleep deprivation is (not) the key to creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quite a few of the famous geniuses in history swore by sleep deprivation. Denying yourself sleep to stimulate creative thoughts certainly makes sense\u2026 and is completely unnecessary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why sleep deprivation helps you to be more creative\u2026 and why there\u2019s a better way<\/h4>\n

Leonardo da Vinci, Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison were not only incredibly creative\u2026 they must also have been pretty tired. Edison believed most people slept too much to be productive and claimed that he himself only slept four hours a day. Tesla was such a workaholic that he barely had time to sleep and he suffered several nervous breakdowns as a result of it. Da Vinci supposedly practised ‘polyphasic sleep’ and slept no more than two hours a day. While all these great minds hardly got any sleep, it did not cease their flow of brilliant ideas. In fact, it might well have been key to their inventions!<\/p>\n

The brain\u2019s filter<\/strong>
\nA fully rested brain is very good at keeping your thought process on track; it filters out distractions and ignores illogical thoughts. This is great when you have to focus on an analytical task, yet it is far from ideal when you have to come up with a creative solution. Blocking seemingly illogical thoughts, the brain\u2019s filter effectively hinders creative thinking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A tired brain, on the other hand, is freed from these limits on creativity. It is much less capable of filtering out illogical combinations and infeasible ideas. In other words: denying your brain sleep disables the inner critic.<\/p>\n

You could compare the way a groggy brain functions with that of a person who is dreaming; the brain makes strange connections that an alert brain would never allow. It is therefore not surprising that many famous creative ideas found their origin in a curious dream<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thomas Edison found a clever way to utilise this insight. Edison<\/a> used his naps to tackle problems he faced in his work. He would sit in a chair and place two metal pans on the floor beside him. In both hands, over the plate, he would hold a metal ball. The moment he began to doze off, the ball would slip from his fingers and land noisily on the plate. Thus waking him up and enabling him to capture the vivid images from this sleep. Unusual images, unfiltered by the pre-frontal cortex and likely to spark creative insights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bad news<\/strong>
\nSo, less sleep makes you more creative. I\u2019m sure many overworked (and sleep deprived) managers will be very happy with this conclusion. But they shouldn\u2019t rejoice too quickly. While a sleep deprived brain might be good at creative thinking, it certainly is no good for analytical thought<\/a>. Assuming you need both in your work, sleeping less is not as great a solution as it seemed.<\/p>\n

The good news<\/strong>
\nWhile denying your poor brain its much-deserved sleep is not an option, there is a perfectly good alternative to it.<\/p>\n

First off: make a conscious effort to shut down the early critic<\/a>. Judging ideas and evaluating their feasibility is absolutely necessary\u2026 but wait with it until AFTER the ideation phase. Suspend your judgement and generate as many ideas as you can. THEN \u2013and only then<\/em>– evaluate the results.<\/p>\n

Secondly, use thinking techniques<\/a> to force your brain on a side track. Don\u2019t settle for obvious, \u2018logical\u2019 ideas. Force your brain to make unusual connections. Use provocations to look for ideas in unexpected (original) directions. Exaggerate<\/a>, fantasise about completely unrealistic scenarios<\/a> and make seemingly absurd combinations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are many thinking techniques to break free from your sensible, yet insufficient, thinking patterns. In the article \u2018What thinking techniques are best for your challenge?<\/a>\u2019 you\u2019ll find some techniques to get you started. Whether you need to solve a tricky problem, are looking for a new business opportunity or simply want to improve an existing product or service.<\/p>\n

Summarising<\/strong>
\nIf all you have to do all day is generating original ideas, denying yourself sleep will actually help (although it\u2019s probably not a viable long-term strategy). However, if you also want to excel in analytical and logical thinking, you\u2019ll have to find a better approach. Luckily there is: deliberately ignore the inner critic. Postpone judgement and don\u2019t let common sense hold you back. Instead, use thinking techniques to purposefully look for answers in unusual directions and force your brain out of its comfort zone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like this article?
\n<\/strong>If you enjoyed reading this article, feel free to share it with your network by hitting one of the\u00a0buttons below. This way other people can benefit from the article as well.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why sleep deprivation helps you to be more creative\u2026 and why there\u2019s a better way<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[526,125,284,522,523,525,527,517,518,520,521,524,519],"class_list":["post-4002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-creativity","tag-brains-filter","tag-da-vinci","tag-davinci","tag-dreaming","tag-edison","tag-filter","tag-prefrontal-cortex","tag-sleep","tag-sleep-deprivation","tag-sleep-deprived","tag-sleeping","tag-tesla","tag-tired"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy sleep deprivation is (not) the key to creativity - HatRabbits<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Denying yourself sleep can actually make you more creative. 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