{"id":2455,"date":"2012-04-19T14:21:57","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=2455"},"modified":"2012-04-19T14:21:57","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:21:57","slug":"study-suggests-some-types-of-meditation-may-help-boost-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2012\/04\/study-suggests-some-types-of-meditation-may-help-boost-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Study suggests some types of meditation may help boost creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the Leiden University press release via AlphaGalileo:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"meditation\" src=\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Meditation.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"204\" height=\"200\" \/>Certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking<\/strong>. This is the outcome of a study by cognitive psychologist Lorenza Colzato and her fellow researchers at Leiden University, published 19 April in the open access journalist\u00a0 <em>Frontiers in Cognition<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This study is a clear indication that <strong>the advantages of particular types of meditation extend much further than simply relaxation<\/strong>. The findings support the belief that <strong>meditation can have a long-lasting influence on human cognition, including how we think and how we experience events<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Two ingredients of creativity<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The study investigates the influences of different types of meditative techniques on the two main ingredients of creativity:\u00a0<strong>divergent and convergent styles of thinking<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Divergent thinking<br \/>\nDivergent thinking allows many new ideas to be generated. It is measured using the so-called Alternate Uses Task method where participants are required\u00a0to think up as many\u00a0uses as possible for a particular object, such as a pen.<\/li>\n<li>Convergent thinking<br \/>\nConvergent thinking, on the other hand, is a process whereby one possible solution\u00a0for\u00a0a particular probem is generated.\u00a0This method is measured using the Remote Associates Task method, where three unrelated words are presented to the participants, words such as &#8216;time&#8217;, &#8216;hair&#8217; and &#8216;stretch&#8217;. The particpants are then asked to identify\u00a0the common link: in this case, &#8216;long&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Analysis of meditation techniques<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Colzato used creativity tasks that measure convergent and divergent thinking to assess which meditation techiques most influence creative activities. The meditation techniques analysed are\u00a0<strong>Open Monitoring\u00a0<\/strong>and <strong>Focused Attention<\/strong> meditation.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In Open Monitoring meditation the individual is receptive to\u00a0all the\u00a0thoughts and sensations experienced without focusing attention on any particular concept or object.<\/li>\n<li>In Focused Attention meditation the individual focuses on a particular thought or object.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Different types of meditation have different effects<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These findings demonstrate that not all forms of meditation have the same effect on creativity. <strong>After an Open Monitoring meditation the participants performed better in divergent thinking, and generated more new ideas than previously, but\u00a0Focused Attention (FA) meditation produced a different result<\/strong>. FA meditation also had no significant effect on convergent thinking leading to resolving a problem.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Leiden University press release via AlphaGalileo: Certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking. This is the outcome of a study by cognitive psychologist Lorenza Colzato and her fellow&#8230; <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2012\/04\/study-suggests-some-types-of-meditation-may-help-boost-creativity\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[18,77,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2456,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions\/2456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}