Losing your childhood creativity

As a child therapist I spend a lot of time finding ways to help impulsive and distracted children improve what is called "executive functioning." This functioning allows us to just say "no" to our inappropriate impulses in favor of more appropriate social decisions. Children who do not have this ability can get into some serious trouble, hence, the parents call to me for an appointment.

The unfortunately side effect of executive function may be a reduction in childish creativity. We all know how spontaneous and free a child can be when it comes to crayons, paper and craft materials. According to the researchers in the study below, the more we think like adults, the more we lose touch with our creative output due to the use of logic and not imagination. The flip side is that it can be accessed at any time in our lives if we allow ourselves to engage in childish play and curiosity.
It may mean we need to inhibit our inhibitions - at least for a specific time.

How do you regain

clipped from scienceblogs.com Pablo Picasso once declared that "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." The solution to Picasso's problem is startlingly simple, at least according to the psychologists Darya Zabelina and Michael Robinson of North Dakota State University: We just need to think like a little kid. In their recent paper, "Child's play: Facilitating the originality of creative output by a priming manipulation," the scientists took a large group of undergraduates and randomly assigned them to two different groups. The first group was given the following instructions: "You are 7 years old. School is canceled, and you have the entire day to yourself. What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you see?" The second group was given the exact same instructions, except the first sentence was deleted. As a result, these students didn't imagine themselves as 7 year olds. the students who imagined themselves as little kids scored far higher on the creative tasks

Why do we dream at night?

Have you ever had an important meeting scheduled for the next day and you spent the night before dreaming anxious dreams. This happened to me a while back and it certainly isn't out of the ordinary (I hope). As the research below describes, we dream to process the events of our day and the day to follow. It is the brains way of sorting what should be kept and what should be gotten rid of. Read on for a great synopsis about our dream life.

clipped from scienceblogs.com While we're fast asleep, the mind is sifting through the helter-skelter of the day, trying to figure out what we need to remember and what we can afford to forget. Unfortunately for me, there's increasing evidence that our dreams are not neural babble, but are instead layered with significance and substance. The narratives that seem so incomprehensible -- why was I running through the airport in my underwear? -- are actually careful distillations of experience, a regurgitation of all the new ideas and insights we encounter during the day. the mind is sifting through the helter-skelter of the day, trying to figure out what we need to remember and what we can afford to forget. In recent years, scientists have discovered that R.E.M. sleep isn't just essential for the formation of long-term memories: it might also be an essential component of creativity.

Dear Diary: Writing helps me heal!

In our last post we talked about the anger myth about how venting your anger is not really healthy. As you would expect, there are opposite ideas that say letting your emotions out is healthy. It is all about how you do it and if your catharsis leads to constructive change or coping. Research suggests that "writing" your feelings can be very helpful in the coping/healing process. Writing has the ability to allow us to craft new narratives about our lives and the meaning that we give it. You become the author of your situation versus the victim. Do you agree? How have your used writing to help you heal? Tweet us @ronhuxley or leave a comment below...

clipped from www.healthandage.com Research is starting to shed some light on the thorny issue of talking about trauma. Does it help to talk about traumas you've experienced or not? Is it a good idea for someone to write about traumatic experiences? It turns out, like most things in life, that it depends on how and in what circumstances. Although writing as therapy actually has an ancient history, a model was developed for research purposes by James Pennebaker, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas 2 . The method consists of several writing exercises with an emphasis on expressing one's emotions. It has been shown in numerous experiments conducted by him and his colleagues that this simple procedure leads to improvements in physical health. Let your hand and the pencil or pen guide you. Set aside a time each day Find a place where you feel alone and comfortable Write out how you feel. Don't use big words and don't talk about it. Show, don't tell, as they say. "I feel _______ that ____________."