Why Sleep is Essential to Creativity

Art Markman, Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, has written an informative article for Fast Company regarding the relationship between sleep and creativity.  Markman writes the following:

To understand how, it is helpful to know a bit more about creativity. When you are trying to develop a creative solution to a difficult problem, you need to find some knowledge that you already have that will help you take a new approach. That means that a big part of creativity is allowing the problem to remind you of things you know about that probably come from another area of your expertise and that are relevant to your current problem. In short, you are seeking a good analogy.

 

Why then does getting a good night's sleep matter? Markman explains that, when you sleep, your memories are consolidated.  The brain does not remember everything about your day.  It has a way of retaining the most crucial events, ideas, and interactions.  If you want to be creative, and perhaps discover a relevant analogy, you do not want your thinking cluttered with non-essential information.  Getting a good night's sleep helps your brain sort out what's important and what is not essential.  In that way, you have a better shot at discovering that key analogy that might lead to a creative breakthrough.   

How The Brain Works

Belle Beth Cooper has a terrific column at Fast Company today, focusing on 10 surprising findings from research on how the brain works.   I highly recommend reading the entire article.  Let's focus on a few highlights here.  Cooper cites some interesting research on multi-tasking. She writes:

Multitasking is something we’ve long been encouraged to practice, but it turns out multitasking is actually impossible. When we think we’re multitasking, we’re actually context-switching. That is, we’re quickly switching back and forth between different tasks, rather than doing them at the same time.  The book Brain Rules explains how detrimental “multitasking” can be:  "Research shows your error rate goes up 50%, and it takes you twice as long to do things."

Cooper also writes that, "Our vision trumps all other senses."  She excerpts from the book, Brain Rules again:  

Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%.  Pictures beat text as well, in part because reading is so inefficient for us. Our brain sees words as lots of tiny pictures, and we have to identify certain features in the letters to be able to read them. That takes time.

I found these two findings particularly interesting, because leaders often fail to adhere to these principles.  They find themselves multitasking very frequently.  Often they complain about how many meetings they attend, how little time they have to think, how many emails they respond to, etc.  However, they never confront the fact that multitasking may not be increasing their efficiency at all.  Instead, it may be harming their effectiveness.  Similarly, leaders often forget to communicate visually.  They give speeches, send emails, and the like... but they don't offer a good visual to tell their story.  I'm not suggesting the use of more Powerpoint!  I am thinking about the use of pictures, storyboards, and other mechanisms to communicate a vision or a strategy. 

 

Why Humans Don't Excel at Multitasking