7 Ways Meditation Increases Creativity

Meditation is a great tool to boost creativity as it supports all the elements needed to surface creativity within you. The added advantage of “Meditation and Creativity” comes with confirmed results for calmness, peace, and emotional balance. You may wonder – how does meditation help boost creativity? In this article we list 7 ways in which meditation helps to stir up your creativity. Enjoy!

Where does your creativity come from?

Contrary to popular belief, creative people don’t have one side of the brain more active than the other. The creative process involves communication of the entire brain and several brain’s regions are lit up whenever imagination and creative thinking are required.

That’s exactly where meditation for creativity can play a crucial role: your creativity comes from within – and meditation strengthens your connection with self. In stillness, you learn to reconnect with the sensations in your body and with all the emotions and feelings that arise. Observing these emotions allows you to find your authentic voice which makes it easier for you to express yourself through your creativity.

You may find inspiration in a variety of ways such as appreciating art, connecting yourself to nature, intentionally looking for beauty around you, observing beautifully designed buildings in the city, or simply connecting with self while practicing meditation for creativity. Meditation and creativity are tightly connected. So let’s dive in the 7 ways that meditation helps you to unleash your creative genius!

1. Meditation allows you to be more intuitive

The more you listen to the sensations in your body, the more you will awake your intuitive self. Your intuition is your authentic voice speaking. When choosing meditation for creativity, you will fine-tune your authentic voice, thus becoming more intuitive. This way meditation and creativity can help to strengthen each other.

2. Meditation enhances your observation skills

A Dutch psychologist, Matthijs Baas, conducted a series of studies in 2014 on mindfulness skills used during meditation that could potentially enhance our creative process.

His studies demonstrated that during meditation our enhanced ability to observe internal phenomena in our body, such as our sensations and feelings, as well as the ability to perceive external stimuli like sounds and smell, can be considered the one skill you need to develop that is the strongest indicator of your creative success. This makes creativity one of the proven benefits of meditation.

As mentioned earlier, you can get inspired in a million different ways, but you do need to have great observation skills to be able to perceive the beauty around you in the first place.

3. Meditation improves your working memory

Enhanced working memory is another effect of having great observation skills. Dr. Matthijs Baas’ studies also concluded that when you meditate and become a great observer, your cognitive flexibility increases. And, your short-term working memory improves as well – which is a highly necessary part of the brain during a creative process. Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can temporarily hold information.

4. Meditation allows you to become more open to experiences

One more reason why it is great to practice meditation for creativity is that you will likely open yourself up to new experiences. The more you become a better observer, the more you see new opportunities ahead of you, and the more open to new experiences you will be. As a result, this helps to become more creative.

5. Meditation teaches you to be non-judgmental

As you develop your self-awareness and learn to embrace all sensations that arise during a meditation session, you become more and more accepting of yourself and the world around you. With practice and time, you end up developing one superpower in which you observe everything but judge nothing. That alone will allow you to express your creativity in a much more expansive way.

6. Meditation trains you to be less strict

Once you set aside intentional time to practice meditation, you will notice that as you become more open to experiences, you also allow yourself to be less strict with your creations. You start exploring new and different ways to express your full creativity.

7. Meditation teaches you to accept vulnerability

Creativity and vulnerability always need to go hand in hand so that your creation can spark emotion in whoever appreciates it. Through meditation for creativity, you learn to embrace all your emotions instead of wanting to hide them. Being vulnerable and accepting all parts of your being are unique characteristics that will be reflected in anything that you create.

When you choose to meditate, you are not just choosing a relaxing and calming activity, you are deliberately opening the doors to your most authentic voice and welcoming it to guide you in all creative endeavors you decide for. In this article we have explored how meditation and creativity are connected, and why creativity is one of the many proven benefits of meditation. So, are you ready to unleash those creative powers within you?