(By Randy Lane) Setting my daily intentions, a brief yoga session, and meditation are habits that bring me joy and kickstart my day. Our habits largely determine who we are and who we become. To be more creative and innovative, practice daily habits that feed your creativity.
If you are a regular reader of this column, you know that we often advocate for meditation, journaling, and digital detoxes to boost creativity, mindfulness, and overall well-being by releasing dopamine and endorphins. We recommend making these practices daily or at least consistent habits.
Our brains naturally distribute dopamine and endorphins to relieve stress and pain and to make us feel good. These chemicals and hormones are strongly associated with the creative process.
Now comes the fun part. Various additional activities in your everyday life can trigger the release of dopamine and endorphins, helping to raise your creativity.
7 Additional Activities to Rev Up Your Creative Output
- Humor: Laughing expands your creativity. Not only does humor increase endorphins and make you feel good, but according to the Mayo Clinic, it also relieves stress, decreases heart rate and blood pressure, and aids muscle relaxation. Watch late-night comedy shows and funny movies, and read comical blogs and books. My wife and I belly-laughed while watching Jimmy Fallon last night!
- Exercise: All forms of physical activity raise endorphin and dopamine levels and improve mood. Exercising in the morning before work improves mental clarity and paves the way for creative ideas to flow more freely.
- Walk in nature: Highly creative people, from Mark Twain to Steve Jobs, believed that walking in nature was one of their most important daily habits for boosting creativity. The Japanese culture has long considered the practice of forest bathing a great benefit to health and creativity.
- Listen to music: Music elevates mood, reduces stress, and leads to divergent thinking. Studies have found that listening to ‘happy music’ can boost divergent creativity.
- Play: As an adult, play allows us to let go of work and be childlike again. Cornhole and Pickleball are two fun and popular activities to relieve stress and clear your mind for more creative thinking. Playing with a child is a wonderful activity that brings out your own inner child and creativity.
- Play/learn a musical instrument: What do Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and Stephen King have in common? They all played musical instruments daily to boost their creativity. If you didn’t take piano lessons as a child or weren’t in the band in school, learning to play a musical instrument will sharpen your brain and creative thinking.
- Word games: Games like Wordle are essentially mini workouts for the brain. Melissa Haveman explains what we can learn about creativity from Wordle.
Randy Lane is the owner of the Randy Lane Company, which coaches and brands radio and television personalities, business professionals, sports personalities, entrepreneurs, and pop culture artists, helping them master communication skills to have an impact on their audiences. Read Randy’s Radio Ink archives here.
