By Ashli Tobias

Since the beginning of time, the human body has required time for sleep to survive. Lack of sleep would lead to poor physical and mental performance, impairing creative thinking, and even sometimes persisting delusions. We all know we need to sleep, it’s a no brainer. However, the relationship between sleep and how it affects your brain's ability to think creatively is becoming more readily apparent. 

HOW DO WE DEFINE CREATIVE THINKING?

Oxford Language’s dictionary definition of creativity is “the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.”  Let’s highlight the word imagination.

 

Imagine this: you’re 6 years old again. Your mom leaves a cardboard box in your room. When you look at it, you don’t see a cardboard box. You see a princess castle, or a rocket-ship, or a boat. The cardboard box hasn’t changed, you changed it within your imagination.

 

At such a young age, every idea you have is an original idea — both because you believe it is, and because technically, at that age, you might invent the idea of something before finding out it already exists. These thoughts are examples of creative thinking — without even knowing you’re doing it. In fact, creativite thoughts are not limited to this one variety of ideas.

 

According to Alison Doyle for  Thebalancecareers.com, there are several different types of creative thinking. These types include analysis, open-mindedness, problem-solving, organization, and communication. All these types are interconnected, improving the different functions by working harmoniously. For example, when you come across a problem you need to solve, you need to use open-minded thinking to allow yourself to develop a solution.

 

Creative thinking expands across the artistic world, problem-solving, and even in STEM fields. It is more limitless than most people believe, and everyone has the potential to be a creative thinker. However, things like health and wellbeing can impact your ability to generate creative thoughts. One activity specifically linked to health and creative thinking is sleeping.

 

HOW SLEEPING CAN CHANGE YOUR CREATIVE THINKING

Creativity produces and displays itself differently through everyone, even if they don’t consider themselves a “creative person.”  However, the first steps to accessing your creativity include having proper health, both mentally and physically. One important component to well-being which is frequently overlooked — despite our crucial need for it — is sleep.

 

 The less sleep you get, the higher your Adenosine levels are. Adenosine, as explained by Dr. Ananya Mandal, is a metabolite produced by the body which “promotes sleep and suppresses arousal.”

 

With high levels of Adenosine in your body, you may begin to feel drowsy or sleepy, inhibiting your ability to focus. Without being able to focus, you won’t be able to perform creative thinking, or similar tasks. Adenosine levels decrease through increased sleep.

 

In addition to lowering Adenosine levels, REM sleep allows us to have dreams. Dreams themselves are examples of creative thinking, although they happen within a different conscious realm.

Dreams can produce ideas that can translate to creativity in our daily lives, even if subconsciously. Throughout history, dreaming has contained a mysterious artistic quality, and is depicted as such across mediums. In many cases, dreaming also assists the human brain with processing the events and conversations of our daily lives.

 

Allowing your brain to re-evaluate the events of your day restores and strengthens functions of your brain regarding memory. When your brain has an organized and strong system of memory, it is easy to access experiences and ideas which would improve creative thoughts and functions.

 

Although we know about Adenosine, the reason why sleep and creativity are directly connected have, for a long time, gone unexplained. A 2010 study in Sleep Medicine supported by the Italian Ministry of Health discovered a relationship between cyclic alternating sleep patterns and creativity.

 

The Sleep Medicine study concluded that low cortical arousal, associated with NREM sleep, can “enhance the ability of people to access the remote associations that are critical for creative innovations,” (Elsevier B.V.).  This conclusion allows us to see more directly the relationship between sleep, or lack thereof, and creative functions of the brain.

Basically, this study detailed that with more sleep, cortical arousal will be lowered, allowing you to access the parts of your brain responsible for creative thinking. When cortical arousal levels are high, it becomes harder for your brain to conduct these same thinking skills. The simple solution is improving your sleep pattern so that it is conducive to proper health.

 

Understanding that you can’t function creatively without sleep, it can be deduced that longer hours of sleep at night can improve more than just your eye bags, ameliorating creative function during the day. No matter what field you are in, you never know when an opportunity which requires creative thinking skills will pop up, and it’s up to you to change your sleeping schedule so you can optimize your creativity. But we know that’s hard, so we have some advice.

PILGRIM SOUL’S ADVICE FOR A GOOD NIGHT’S REST

As mentioned earlier, we all know we need sleep. But honestly, most of us suck at it. Here is Pilgrim Soul’s not-so professional advice on sleeping more so you can think more creatively.

LIMIT SCREEN TIME BEFORE BED

We all love to be connected to the internet, social media, and our loved ones, but maybe it’s time to take some “me time” before you go to bed. We recommend about 30 minutes before bed you shut off your phones, laptops, and streaming devices to help improve your sleep and the ebenfits that come from it. This tip is also recommended by the National Sleep Foundation, as it will help increase your overall REM sleep time and help with alertness during the day.

AVOID BLUE LIGHT SPECTRUMS BEFORE BED

Directly relating to screen time, blue light spectrums have been reported to interrupt healthy sleep habits. According to Harvard Health, blue light spectrums impact our circadian rhythm, commonly referred to as our “biological clock.” Trick your body into getting a full night’s rest by cutting off your screen time early, and maybe switch to warmer toned lighting before you decide to go to sleep. 

AVOID FOOD CLOSE TO BEDTIME

According to Verywell Health, nutritionists recommend waiting about 3 hours after your last meal before you decide to sleep. Eating before bed has not only been noted to impact your blood sugar levels, but also your digestive abilities. Both of which could interrupt your healthy sleep patterns. However, Verywell also notes that there are some foods which can help you sleep, and they note that these foods would be high in tryptophan, a compound our bodies change into melatonin, the compound naturally released in our bodies to help us sleep. So either that means to eat a turkey before a full night’s rest, or avoid food altogether and maybe just take a melatonin supplement instead if you need it. However you want to interpret that. 

LIMIT YOUR CAFFEINE

Nobody wants to hear this, but whether you are an avid coffee, matcha, tea, or energy drink consumer, you’re impacting your sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, studies have shown that consuming caffeine even six hours before bed can reduce sleeping time by an hour. Overuse of caffeine can even lead to or worsen symptoms of insomnia, so skip that third cup of joe or you might pay for it six hours later. 

STICK TO A SCHEDULE

According to Sleep.com, sticking to a schedule with your sleep not only improves your circadian rhythm leading to higher quality rest, but it also is conducive to “healthier body composition” AND “lowered risk of heart disease.” Sounds like some pretty good benefits if you ask me. It doesn’t  matter when you fall asleep or wake up, as long as you’re consistent with what time you do, and there’s 7-9 hours of sleep between them. 

All of these tips, and more that can be referenced from The National Sleep Foundation, can help you improve your sleeping skills — yes skills, we know it’s difficult — and allow you to live an overall higher quality of life. Importantly, you can tap into those creative thinking skills, helping you become the best version of yourself, one creative idea at a time.