Practice a dual meditation starting with 5-10 minutes of open monitoring (for divergent thinking) followed immediately by 5-10 minutes of focused attention meditation (for convergent thinking) to train both aspects of the creative process effectively.
Engage in Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) or Yoga Nidra for 10-60 minutes (20-30 min recommended weekly minimum) to achieve a state of limited motion, deep relaxation while awake. This selectively increases dopamine in the nigrostriatal pathway by 65%, preparing the brain for enhanced divergent thinking.
Perform NSDR/Yoga Nidra for 10-60 minutes, then within 5-15 minutes afterward, engage in divergent thinking and creative exploration. The NSDR practice prepares your brain for enhanced idea generation, which occurs after the session.
Engage in physical activities like walking, running, cycling, or hiking without directing conscious attention to specific external sensory targets (visual or auditory). This activates pseudo-random neural pathways, enhancing divergent thinking and allowing new ideas to surface.
While engaging in non-focused movement (walking, etc.), use voice dictation or typing on your phone to immediately capture ideas that surface, ensuring you avoid distractions like social media or calls that would disrupt the pseudo-random thought process.
To be truly creative, actively forage for and acquire structured information and fundamental building blocks in your domain of interest, as you cannot effectively break or recombine rules you don’t first understand.
Creativity enhancement tools (like NSDR or non-focused movement) are most effective when applied to domains where you already possess a foundational skill or mastery, as they enhance your capacity to combine existing knowledge in novel ways, not create skill from scratch.
To enhance creativity, begin by engaging in ‘world building,’ which involves creating a novel conceptual shift or alternate reality for your creative endeavor, setting new constraints and possibilities distinct from the actual world.
Enhance creativity by practicing ‘perspective shifting,’ where you adopt the underlying motivations (e.g., anger, altruism) of someone else, rather than just their actions or thoughts, to explore a broader yet logically constrained set of possibilities.
Employ ‘action generating’ techniques by forcing collaboration between individuals (real or imagined) with different motivations within your ‘world-built’ scenario, creating ‘creative collisions’ that lead to novel interactions and outcomes.
Engage in open monitoring meditation (sitting/lying with eyes closed, observing thoughts without judgment, allowing them to vary) for 10-30 minutes to tap into frontal networks and enhance creative abilities by allowing unconstrained evaluation of new rule sets. This is especially useful for those who struggle with traditional meditation or focus.
Learn to assess your current mood (low, medium, high) and use this calibration to decide whether to engage in dopamine-elevating activities (like music or exercise) to prepare for divergent thinking, or to abstain if already in a good mood.
If in a low or ‘meh’ mood and struggling with divergent thinking, engage with external stimuli you enjoy (e.g., positive stories, music, exercise) for 5-30 minutes to elevate your mood and dopamine levels before attempting divergent thinking.
If already in a positive mood, avoid further dopamine-elevating activities (e.g., additional stimulants, excessive external stimuli like music/visuals) and immediately engage in divergent thinking, as excessive dopamine can hinder this process.
Avoid caffeine before divergent thinking tasks, but use it (1-3mg/kg body weight) before convergent thinking tasks to enhance focus and persistence, as caffeine is more conducive to convergent thinking.
Regular consumption of 1-3mg caffeine per kg of body weight daily can increase dopamine receptor efficacy and density, making existing dopamine more effective for mood, motivation, and divergent thinking, but it’s best reserved for convergent thinking tasks.
Dissolve one packet of Element (electrolytes: sodium, magnesium, potassium, no sugar) in 16-32 ounces of water first thing in the morning and during physical exercise to maintain optimal brain and body function and prevent diminished cognitive/physical performance due to dehydration.
Take Athletic Greens once or twice a day to cover basic nutritional needs and support microbiome health with probiotics. Supplement with Vitamin D3 (essential for brain/body health) and K2 (regulates cardiovascular function, calcium) as many are deficient.
Use the Waking Up app to explore different types of meditation, mindfulness trainings, yoga nidra, and non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) protocols, which can place the brain and body into different states and restore cognitive/physical energy.
To increase dopamine levels (and thus focus, motivation, and desire to move), consider taking L-Tyrosine in dosages of 500-1000mg, but be aware that its potency varies among individuals and it affects all dopamine pathways non-selectively.
Take 600mg of phenylethylamine for a brief (30-45 minute) boost in dopamine, which many find beneficial for studying or creative thinking.
Incorporate foods high in L-Tyrosine (e.g., aged parmesan cheese) into your diet to naturally support dopamine levels, which can enhance focus, motivation, and creative thinking.
Individuals with ADHD often excel at divergent thinking but struggle with convergent thinking, which can hinder the implementation of creative ideas. Explore rational pharmacology, nutrition, and supplementation in consultation with a board-certified physician or psychiatrist to enhance convergent thinking.
Microdosing psilocybin (very low doses, daily for weeks, not inducing hallucination) has been shown to increase divergent thinking ability by enhancing serotonin 5-HT2A receptor activity. Note: Psilocybin is illegal in most areas, and research on microdosing is less extensive than on macro-dosing.
Very low doses of alcohol can enhance divergent thinking by reducing prefrontal cortex activation and autobiographical scripting, which helps suppress self-judgment. Note: There is zero evidence that alcohol increases overall creativity, and behavioral tools are a much better route.
High THC cannabis can enhance divergent thinking, but often leads to ideas that cannot be constrained by convergent thinking or remembered later, making implementation into actual creative products challenging.