CREATIVITY SPECIAL................. BRAIN CURRY FOR THE CREATIVE SOUL

BRAIN CURRY FOR THE CREATIVE SOUL 

In our own ways, each of us is creative. But neuro psychologists loosely bracket individual creativity in the categories of Mini C (those with the innate creativity present in each of us); Pro C (creative but not established in their field) and the Big C (creative people who’ve proven their credentials). Dr Jamuna Rajeswaran says the next stage of her project involves using neuro-feedback training to enhance creativity and help adults as well as kids become innovative using creativity enhancement tasks.

Simple exercises can strengthen the motor cortex and involve the cerebellum, which is associated with higher cognitive functions such as working memory (the ability to mentally manipulate objects and situations) and can play an important role in fostering creativity.

Open your mind: Get exposed to two new things you have never done before in your life. It could be a new auditory experience such as listening to music in another language; or a tactile experience such as creating toys with clay or sand.

Visualise: For multimodal stimulation, while listening to music, try and visualise the lyrics. When you hear Saagarkinaare, dilye pukare, visualise the beach, the actors in the song and who has sung it. You are stimulating not just auditory but also the visual portions of your brain activity.

Pay attention: Make your child cancel alphabets in a newspaper. Make her cancel the alphabet say M, for five minutes. See the alphabets she has missed out on the first day and the next day repeat the exercise and check whether her attention is improving.

Manipulate: Solve crosswords, jumbled sentences and anagrams. Mental manipulation is one of most important traits that can foster creativity.

Chronicle: Increase your learning and memory by writing a diary. After one month, go back to what you wrote earlier. This back and forth enhances your memory, cognition and thus creativity.

Do nothing: The creative part of your brain is active during the resting stage. Ask music legend Paul McCartney! He emerged from his sleep and created the magical lyrics of Yesterday.

HTBR26JUL15