These are notes from a class on creativity Michael C. Patterson gave for MINDRAMP’s Better Brains class for the Senior Center Without Walls this past Thursday, January 28. Senior Center Without Walls is an award winning program that provides free, telephone-based activities, education, conversation and classes to isolated older adults.

MINDRAMP has been a long-time supporter of SCWW and Roger Anunsen’s brain health classes are among the most popular offerings. During this class on The Brain & Creativity, guest instructor Michael C. Patterson presented an overview of some core concepts of creativity, as outlined below, then engaged in a lively Q & A exchange with the participants.
 
CREATIVITY 

Wired for Creativity - All human beings have brains that are wired for creativity. The remarkable evolutionary success of human beings is due, in large part, to our incredible capacity for creative thinking and creative behavior.  We are wired for creativity.


Defining Creativity
 - The most common definitions of creativity combine two key concepts: novelty & utility. When we are being creative we bring something new and useful into the world.  

Big C and Little c creativity - Big C creativity refers to major creative breakthroughs that are performed by creative geniuses. The kind of creativity is relatively rare. Little c creativity refers to the every day kind of creativity that we all perform on a regular basis and tend to take for granted. 


H Creativity and P Creativity - Historical (H) Creativity refers to a creative breakthrough of historical proportions. In the history of the world, no one has every had the idea before - Very rare.
Personal Creativity (P) refers to a creative idea that is new to an individual. Others may have had this idea before, but that does not diminish its creativity for this one individual.


Novelty & Routine - While creativity is most often thought of as the opposite of routine, I believe that creativity is a combination of novelty and routine.  True, we often need to break out of old routines in order to learn and grow and to adjust to change.  To free ourselves from outdated routines we need to explore novel approaches and invent new and more effective ways of doing things. But these novel approaches are only truly valuable if they become tools that we can use over and over again, and in different circumstances. The novel ideas, in other words, must become routines to be really useful.


The creative process involves multiple types of activity, including breaking and reinventing routines.
 Creativity is a matter of having multiple choices. Human beings are more creative than other animals specifically because we have more routines at our disposal.  


Creative People, Product and Process - People who research creativity tend to focus on three different perspectives: People, Process and Product.


Creative People - The core question is why is one person is more, or less, creative than another. 


My N.A.M.E. Hypothesis states that “creative achievement is determined by Natural Aptitudes Modified by Experience.” There is now broad consensus among researchers that genes and experience interact to produce creative genius and creative excellence. 

 
Mozart, for example, would not have become a musical prodigy if he had ignored his natural aptitude for music. But Mozart’s entire environment was dedicated to music. His father taught music and was somewhat obsessed with developing, and exploiting, his son’s talent. Mozart’s early aptitude for music was, consequently, developed to its full potential. 
Genes and environment working together to achieve creative mastery
 
All of us can develop our creativity if we are willing to put in the effort to build on whatever nature aptitudes we have.


Creative Products
 - This is the realm of aesthetics. The key question is, “Why is one product considered more creative than another?”  Why is one object or person considered more beautiful and pleasing to the eye than another? 

My H.E.A.T hypothesis of aesthetics is similar to the N.A.M.E. hypothesis, mentioned above. It states the “our aesthetic judgments are based on a Hierarchy of Evolved and Acquired Tastes.”

At base, we all share certain universal likes and dislikes. We all understand the meaning of certain basic facial expressions and gestures. These form the foundation of our aesthetic tastes. But these universal responses are modified by layer upon layer of cultural, familial and personal likes and dislikes, which can be quite idiosyncratic.  This how certain aesthetic judgments can translate from culture to culture, while other are judged very differently by different cultures. 


Expectation & Surprise

An artist’s enhances the interest and engagement with his or her work by manipulating our expectation and surprise.  The artist creates an expectation that we find familiar and comfortable, then surprises us with something different that grabs our attention and peaks our ongoing interest.  It is the dynamic interplay of these two factors that keeps a story or an object interesting. When expectation is fulfilled all of the time, the story becomes trite and boring. If, on the other hand, there is constant surprise and change, our minds become fatigued and chaotic. We respond best to the ebb and flow of expectation and surprise - like the plot of a good mystery murder or adventure story. Just when the hero escapes from certain death, and we relax, some new threat comes along. Expectation and surprise; relaxation and stimulation; routine and novelty.
 

Creative Process
 
The key questions is “What do creative people do when they are being creative?” Creative scientists have recognized patterns of behavior in their own creative work and have identified specific stages of a full creative process. 

MIND RAMP has built on early work to propose a Creative Cycle that consists of three major phases that divide up into seven individual stages. The major phases of the creative process are:

Goal Setting & Orientation
Idea Generation
Hypothesis Testing


The full Creative Cycle, with both phases and stages looks like this:

Goal Setting & Orientation
Getting Started - The Initiation Stage
Research and Skill-Building - The Saturation Stage

Idea Generation
Conscious exploration of ideas - The Manipulation Stage
Unconscious exploration of ideas - The Incubation Stage
Insight - The Illumination Stage

Hypothesis Testing
Build it - the Implementation Stage
Test it - The Verification Stage

 
The Creative Cycle is like a spiral that, when completed, leads seamlessly into yet another creative cycle. An idea that works leads to a new set of creative challenges and another Creative Cycle. An idea that fails provides invaluable information about what to try next and another Creative Cycle. 


The best way to improve our own, individual creativity, we believe, is to learn how to effectively navigate the creative process using the steps of the MINDRAMP Creative Cycle. 

In a recent article in the September/October issue of Mind Magazine, psychology professor Charlotte N. Markey explains why most diets fail. In this blog we will review Markey's findings about why diets fail, and to our mind, why attempts at other kinds of behavior change tend to fail.  
 
Markey, Charlotte N. (2015) Don’t Diet. Scientific American Mind. Vol. 25. No. 5, September/October.
 
The Key Points
 
Research shows that most people who try to diet fail to lose weight or to keep the weight off. Most diets, in fact, cause people to gain weight. A 2013 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that 15 out of 20 studies showed that dieting predicted weight gain, not weight loss.
 
Psychological studies show that diets cause mental fatigue, create cravings for forbidden treats and set people up to binge when they fall off the wagon.
 
An overwhelming body of work now shows that a more moderate approach is the best way to achieve lasting weight loss and health.
 
The best approach is to create a healthy lifestyle that you can enjoy and sustain over the long term by making small changes to your routine, one at a time.
 
This is the message MINDRAMP has been preaching for over a decade about not only weight loss, but also about a broad array of conditions that affect both brain health and mental flourishing.
 
Why do typical diets fail?
 
Binging, The “what the hell effect”

Diets that restrict the amount of food you can eat, or the type of foods that can be consumed, seem to create a craving for the forbidden food. This craving, in turn, increases the temptation to splurge and binge when we fall off the wagon.  One slip up and we feel like we have blown the diet and “what the hell,” might as well go whole hog and pig out.

Ironic processing

Many diets recommend the total elimination of a certain type of food, like meat, or sugar, or carbohydrates. But, this radical approach rarely works.  Going cold turkey creates a craving for the forbidden food, as above. Trying to suppress thoughts about the particular food – “I must not eat ice cream! I must not eat ice cream!!” -- just ends up making the desire to eat ice cream that much more powerful. Ironic, isn’t it?  Hence the term, “ironic processing.”  The better approach seems to be to indulge from time to time, but with restraint and with mindfulness. Limit the amount of the offending food. Limit the number of times you indulge. Wean yourself off of dangerous foods rather than go cold turkey.

Another irony is that our attitude and mind-set also affects our ability to lose weight. Women who are dissatisfied with their bodies are less successful at losing weight.  Well, gosh.  If I am overweight and uncomfortable, I am likely to be dissatisfied with my body. So, it seems like a lose-lose situation. Or, I guess, a no lose (weight) situation. The recommended solution to this conundrum is to work on self-esteem (see recommendations in a subsequent blog.)

Mental fatigue

If dieting becomes an obsession, the mental energy needed to focus on what you should and shouldn’t eat will exhaust your brain and make it harder for your mind to performing other important functions. One such function is, ironically, self-control. Will power requires mental energy and if obsessing about food has exhausted your energy reserves, you won’t have the will power to resist temptation.   

Strict diets that are hard to maintain can also give rise to feelings of guilt when you inevitably give in to temptation. “Why did I eat that M&M?  I’m so weak.  I have no will power. I’m a failure.” And, so on. This kind of guilty reaction causes a rise in cortisol levels, an indicator of elevated stress levels.  This kind of stress is bad from your health and, what is worse, we often try to handle the increase in stress by eating.
 
The approach Markey recommends for weight loss is to make small, incremental changes to behavior patterns that affect what you eat and how much you eat.  Aim to make changes that will last a lifetime.  “Creating good habits,” says Markey, “takes time, patience and resolve,” but if you stick with it, “you may find yourself on the road to the body and active way of life you’ve always dreamed about.”
 
In a subsequent blog we will review Markey’s recommendations for how to diet effectively. These approaches are consistent with MINDRAMP’s general approach to behavior change and attitude change of all kinds. 

(This blog is excerpted from Better Brains by Design, Book #1: Blueprints for a Better Brain, that will be available through Smashwords e-Books, mid-November, 2015)


Better Brains By Design (BBBD) is an initiative from MINDRAMP that promotes health, personal growth and positive social interaction. Through books, workshops and webinars, BBBD teaches individuals and groups how to consciously shape the plasticity of their brains in ways that promote health and happiness. 

The title explains both the goal and the approach of the initiative. The goal is to help each participant improve the health and function of their brains. We don’t accept the idea that brains inevitably decline after age 30 or 40. Current studies in gerontology and neuroscience make it clear that our brains are capable of continued growth and development throughout our lifespan.  So, given a choice, we would like our brains — your brains — to get better each day. Hence, better brains!

We focus on brains with the full understanding that the human body and brain work together as an integrated system. We embrace a holistic, integrated approach to health and wellbeing. But, we also recognize the brain as the center of consciousness, the source of our ability to make deliberate, mindful decisions. 

Our health and wellbeing is profoundly influenced by the decisions we make about how to behave. Our experiences, our actions, our emotions and even our thoughts influence the structure and, therefore, the function of our body and mind. By being mindful and deliberate about what we do, we can influence the health our our brains. If we understand the science of how the body and brain work, and how to influence the incredible plasticity (malleability) of the human brain, we can design brains that work better. Better brains by design.

That is the goal of Better Brains by Design - is to design clear, science-based strategies to keep our brains healthy and enhance our capacity to nurture and cultivate our wellbeing. ​

THE BRAIN on PBS - Week Two 

During Week 2 of The Brain on PBS, David Eagleman explored the question of how the human brain builds self-identity and sought to answer the question, “What makes me, ME?”

The episode explored human development and stressed the importance of neuroplastic chages in the brain across our lifespan.  Because human infants are born helpless and must acquire needed survival skills through on-the-job training our development starts in the womb, but continues after birth, experiences a second burst in the teenage years and continues, as a somewhat slower pace, for the rest of our life.  

We have explored the consequences of being born helpless in a number of writings under the umbrella title of “Nimble Bodies, Nimble Minds.”  Narrow hips and small birth canals caused by the upright stance, required the explosive growth of the human brain to take place outside of the womb and through interaction with the environment. This had two major consequences that contributed to human bodies and brains that survive and thrive because they are nimble and adaptive 

First, being born helpless made human babies super-dependent on care and nurturing from mothers and from a range of “alloparents” or surrogate parents and caregivers, such as fathers, aunts, grandparents and even friends. Alloparenting is unique to human beings. The ultra-dependency require the super-development of social intelligence. We need brains that are nimble enough to negotiate myriad social interactions and relationships.  We couldn’t survive unless we understood other people, were able to communicate effectively, and learned how to engage in cooperative behaviors with them.

The second major consequence was that our brains had to be highly plastic and flexible, capable of absorbing new learning on the fly and retaining useful memories. Since human babies have to develop outside the womb, we needed brains that rewired themselves to response effectively to the specific challenges that we encountered in our environment. This made our brains and bodies incredible nimble and flexible, capable of adapting themselves to any kind of environment that was encountered. 

The remarkable plasticity of the brain has interesting and profound implications for our sense of Self. 

Since what makes me ME is largely my brain, and since my brain is constantly changing in response to new stimuli, my identify, my SELF, is also continually in flux. My SELF is different from one moment to the next. Your SELF today differs from your SELF of yesterday because your brain has changed during that time. There is no fixed and permanent ME or YOU. Me is a state of becoming that continues until I die. 

This is a hard concept for most of us who grew up under the influence of Western philosophies and mindsets, but it is very consistent with a core Buddhist concept of “anatman” or the self-less being. On this point, Buddhism and neuroscience are on the same page. There is no fixed self, but a constant unfolding of a new selfness with each passing moment. We are formed by what came in the past, what the buddhists would refer to as “the causal connectedness of all things.” And, we will be further changed by what is happening to us at this very moment.

So what makes me who I am is the sum total of the actions I have taken, the thoughts I have had and heard, the emotions I have felt and the experiences I have had. And, my brain and my Self will be changed by what I do, think, feel and experience today and in the future. This is why it is possible to build better brains. It is this incredible plasticity of the engine of our Self (our brains) that makes it possible to design healthier brains and brains that are increasingly capable of supporting ongoing personal development and enhanced social interaction. If we are thoughtful and deliberate about how the kind of plastic change our brains undergo, we can shape them to be healthier and happier. This is what MINDRAMP’s Better Brains by Design Initiative is all about.