Dreaming is Good For You
It’s not just writers, artists, and musicians who benefit from expanding their imaginations. Imagination is for everyone, and science agrees with us. When you use your imagination, your neural activity increases. Your mind is essentially entering a room it hasn’t been to before. When you pull from memory, your brain can relax by relying on connections made from past experiences. But when you use your imagination, your brain is working double time to process unfamiliar information.
Exercise Your Imagination
And it doesn’t just make you smarter, and probably more interesting, it’s actually good for your health to train those imagination muscles. A 2015 study concluded that “people who engaged in artistic activities… were 73% less likely to have memory and thinking problems, such as mild cognitive impairment, that lead to dementia.” So we've outlined 3 ways that you can exercise your imagination.
Take Inspiration from Children
There’s a statistic that says four-year-olds ask 200-400 questions a day. Whilst we all know considerably more than we did when we were four, we don’t know everything by any stretch of the imagination. By asking questions you get to know others, learn things, or even challenge your own perception. This broadening of your mind can only help your creativity, because even if kids don’t have all the answers, they do have all the imagination.
Stare Mindlessly Out of the Window
Niksen is the Dutch art of doing nothing. It’s actually harder than it sounds. It’s no secret that we spend the majority of our days working, watching, listening, doing. But “Nothing-ing”? We are so bad at it, that there isn’t even an active word for it in the English language. When practicing Niksen, you spend time with your own thoughts. You do not interrogate them, you just let them happen. These quiet moments are where your mind will do it’s best work.
Blue Sky Thinking
The colour blue is thought to enhance creative performance, calm and inspire feelings of serenity. Whilst the vast blue sky and sea could trick you into thinking otherwise, it’s actually the colour that is found least in nature. Perhaps a trip to the blue city, Chefchaouen in Morocco is in order for some imaginative thinking cloaked in blue.
Be ready when ideas strike. Shop your inspiration journal.
Beechmore Editor
