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NEWS
Study: Can meditation influence creativity?
A study published in Frontiers in Cognition this month concludes that certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking.
The study investigated the influences of two meditative techniques on the two main ingredients of creativity: divergent and convergent styles of thinking.
Cognitive psychologist Lorenza Colzato and her fellow researchers at Leiden University specifically looked at Open Monitoring (OM) and Focused Attention (FA) meditation for the study. In OM meditation, the individual is receptive to all the thoughts and sensations experienced without focusing attention on any particular concept or object. In FA meditation, the individual focuses on a particular thought or object.
In the end, the study found that:
First, OM meditation induces a control state that promotes divergent thinking, a style of thinking that allows many new ideas of being generated. Second, FA meditation does not sustain convergent thinking, the process of generating one possible solution to a particular problem.
Click here to read the abstract. And click here for a list of stories about mindfulness, the arts and creativity on Mindful.org.
04/23/12
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How can mindfulness help? Elisha Goldstein, Mindful's mental health blogger, looks beyond teen exam stress.
Steph Tlalka: Meditation vacuum cleaner?
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