Creativity Key to Slowing Brain Aging

 Does your competent? doctor have enough functioning neurons to implement this? How else is your doctor going to recover your 5 lost years of brain cognition due to your stroke? Or is your doctor DOING NOTHING TO GET YOU RECOVERED?

Mine did nothing and knew nothing, which seems to be the standard response of all stroke doctors! COMPLETE FUCKING INCOMPETENCE!

Creativity Key to Slowing Brain Aging

Summary: Regular creative activity is linked to a younger-looking brain and slower brain aging, according to a large international brain-imaging analysis. People who regularly danced, made music, created visual art, or played strategy-based video games showed brain patterns associated with delayed aging.

The effect strengthened with years of experience, suggesting long-term creative engagement reshapes how the brain ages. Even short-term creative training produced measurable improvements in brain aging markers.

Key Facts:

• Younger Brain Age: Creative engagement was associated with a lower brain-age gap, a marker of delayed neural aging.
• Experience Matters: Long-term dancers, musicians, artists, and strategy gamers showed the strongest brain-health benefits.
• Plasticity Boost: Creative activity increased efficiency in brain networks critical for attention, coordination, and problem-solving.

Source: SWPS University

How to keep your brain in good shape? It is a good idea to regularly engage in creative activities, such as dancing, painting, or even playing certain computer games.

Such activities are associated with delayed brain ageing, and the greater the experience, the stronger this association, scientists, including researchers from SWPS University, observed in an international study.

“The conclusions from the study, published in the journal Nature Communications, could translate into specific actions in the field of public health. They suggest the need to incorporate creative activities (e.g., artistic, musical) into educational programs and healthcare systems as a promising tool for supporting brain health and societal well-being”, says Aneta Brzezicka, PhD, a professor at SWPS University, psychologist, and co-author of the study.

Creativity manifests not only in art

Creativity, or the ability to produce novel ideas or solutions using one’s imagination, most often refers to music and art, but it turns out that playing certain video games can also stimulate it. For example, strategy games like StarCraft II require users to be resourceful in developing unique tactics, adaptive problem-solving, and personalised playstyles.

It has been known for some time that creativity and creative activities have a positive impact on brain health. However, available scientific research on this topic focuses on the effects of creative experiences on cognitive processes and well-being, which is why, as part of an international study, scientists decided to provide evidence of the impact of creative activities on brain health.

Brain clocks and age gap

As part of the study, the researchers analysed neuroimaging data and surveys from over 1,400 participants from 13 countries (including Turkey, Italy, Cuba, Argentina, Canada, Germany, and Poland), among them individuals who could be described as experts in a given creative field.

Dancers (tango), musicians, visual artists, and action game players, including inexperienced players, were included. In one of the studies, participants’ brain activity was measured before and after several weeks of training in StarCraft II.

The researchers used advanced computational models, so-called brain clocks, which attempt to estimate a person’s “brain age” based on neuroimaging data. They are used in scientific research on a variety of brain diseases.

These models compare predicted brain age with chronological age, estimating the so-called brain-age gap (BAG), which reflects accelerated or delayed brain ageing.

Accelerated ageing (and therefore larger positive BAGs) is observed in psychiatric and neurological conditions, but also in people exposed to certain physical and social factors and leading unhealthy lifestyles.

Creativity supports brain health

The study authors found that people more engaged in creative activities, from dance and music to visual arts and playing computer games, tended to have a younger “brain age”, suggesting that such activities may help delay brain ageing and support healthy brain function. The link between creativity and brain health was independent of the type of creative activity.

All the analysed activities are associated with stimulating imagination and generating new solutions. Although they differ in form, they work in a similar way and may help maintain neural connections that are most vulnerable to weakening with age. The study shows that these activities support key functions, including motor control, coordination, and attention.

Creative experiences increased the plasticity of brain regions susceptible to ageing, as well as areas associated with creative processes. 

“The study shows that creative experiences are associated with higher local and global brain network efficiency (especially in the frontoparietal hubs), which translates into more efficient information processing in those key regions,” explains psychologist Natalia Kowalczyk-Grębska, PhD, whose doctoral dissertation defended at SWPS University contributed to the new research.

Greater experience, younger brain

People who have spent years developing their skills in creative fields such as dance, music, art, or playing real-time strategy games had, on average, a more “youthful” brain-age profile compared to those with less experience in these activities.

This means that long-term practice related to creativity may be more effective in promoting neural plasticity and brain health than short-term experiences.

Although regular creative activity has been shown to help maintain a “younger” brain, in this study, even several weeks of targeted training (around 30 hours in total) were linked to measurable changes in brain-age indicators.

Effects of delayed brain ageing were observed across all creative domains studied, especially among more experienced individuals, with similar but smaller effects in participants undergoing short-term training.

These results indicate that it is a good idea to regularly tap into our creative potential, be it through dancing, painting, or immersing ourselves in the world of computer games. Such activities are associated with slower brain ageing, making them one of the simple, everyday ways to support brain health and – indirectly – our well-being, Brzezicka concludes.

The paper describing the study, “Creative experiences and brain clocks” was published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

The following researchers were involved in the study: Aneta Brzezicka, PhD, a professor at SWPS University and psychologist from the Institute of Psychology at SWPS University; Natalia Kowalczyk-Grębska, PhD, a psychologist who defended her doctorate at SWPS University; and Natalia Jakubowska, PhD, a psychologist from the Faculty of Psychology at SWPS University in Warsaw.

Key Questions Answered:

Q: Does creativity really affect how fast the brain ages?

A: Yes — higher creative engagement was linked to measurably younger-looking brain networks.

Q: Do video games provide the same benefits as traditional art forms?

A: Yes — strategy-based games showed similar brain-protective effects as music, dance, and visual art.

Q: How quickly can creative activities affect the brain?

A: Brain-age changes were detected after just several weeks of targeted creative training.

Editorial Notes:

• This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
• Journal paper reviewed in full.
• Additional context added by our staff.

About this creativity and brain aging research news

Author: Marta Danowska-Kisiel
Source: SWPS
Contact: Marta Danowska-Kisiel – SWPS
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking

I spend my walking time creating a TED talk, it will not be praising the doctors for saving my life. Instead it will be a brutal takedown.
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xlm-a0036577.pdf
Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz
Stanford University
Four experiments demonstrate that walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after. In
Experiment 1, while seated and then when walking on a treadmill, adults completed Guilford’s alternate uses (GAU) test of creative divergent thinking and the compound remote associates (CRA) test of convergent thinking. Walking increased 81% of participants’ creativity on the GAU, but only increased 23% of participants’ scores for the CRA. In Experiment 2, participants completed the GAU when seated and then walking, when walking and then seated, or when seated twice. Again, walking led to higher GAU scores. Moreover, when seated after walking, participants exhibited a residual creative boost.
Experiment 3 generalized the prior effects to outdoor walking. Experiment 4 tested the effect of walking on creative analogy generation. Participants sat inside, walked on a treadmill inside, walked outside, or were rolled outside in a wheelchair. Walking outside produced the most novel and highest quality analogies. The effects of outdoor stimulation and walking were separable. Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity.

People have noted that walking seems to have a special relation
to creativity. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1889) wrote,
“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking” (Aphorism
34). The current research puts such observations on solid footing.
Four studies demonstrate that walking increases creative ideation.
The effect is not simply due to the increased perceptual stimulation
of moving through an environment, but rather it is due to walking.
Whether one is outdoors or on a treadmill, walking improves the
generation of novel yet appropriate ideas, and the effect even
extends to when people sit down to do their creative work shortly
after.
The Mind–Body Connection
Prior research has documented several ways that physical ac-
tivity can influence cognition. These include studies that have
shown global protective effects of exercise against cognitive de-
cline (e.g., Kramer, Erickson, & Colcombe, 2006), the “embodied”
dependency of semantic concepts on physical activity (e.g.,
Klatzky, Pellegrino, McCloskey, & Doherty, 1989), and the com-
petition of physical and mental activity for shared attentional
resources (e.g., Li, Lindenberger, Freund, & Baltes, 2001). As we
show later, these literatures do not explain the creativity effect
demonstrated here. More relevant is research that examines how
physical activity selectively enhances specific cognitive processes.
Studies on selective cognitive effects of physical activity have
largely focused on aerobic activity (running), rather than mild
activity (walking) or anaerobic activity (sprinting). For example,
aerobic activity appears to increase the speed of concurrent cog-
nition (Brisswalter, Collardeau, & Rene, 2002; Fontana, Maz-
zardo, Mokgothu, Furtado, & Gallaher, 2009; Tomoporowski,
2003). Researchers have also investigated short-term residual ef-
fects of aerobic exercise (e.g., Kubesch et al., 2003). In their
meta-analysis, Lambourne and Tomporowski (2010) found a small
improvement in memory performance following acute exercise.
Within this literature, there is also a hint that exercise could have
positive effects on creativity.
Gondola (1986, 1987) found gains in participants’ ideational
fluency after aerobic running or dancing, and Netz, Tomer, Axel-
rad, Argov, and Inbar (2007) found similar results for aerobic
walking, regardless of participants’ fitness history. Steinberg et al.
(1997) measured people’s flexibility in generating unusual uses for
common objects
after they had participated in aerobic exercise or
slow rhythmic stretching. Both activities led to greater flexibility
compared with watching a 20-min video on rock formations.
Unfortunately, the authors of this study did not determine whether physical
activity facilitates ideation or a geology video suppresses it.
These creativity effects occurred after sustained periods of ex-
ercise, often aerobic. Asking people to take a 30-min run to
improve their subsequent seated creativity would be an unhappy
prescription for many people. Thus, the current research examined
the more practical strategy of taking a short walk. In the General
Discussion, we consider possible mechanisms by which the cre-
ativity effect takes hold.

Creative People Have Better Connected Brains

Followup needed for this and see if creative people recover from stroke better because they have more brain reserve. A very easy Ph.D thesis to get done.
http://neurosciencenews.com/neural-network-creativity-6137/
Summary: A new study reports highly creative people appear to have more connections between their brain hemispheres.
Source: Duke University.
Highly creative people have significantly more nerve connections between the right and left hemispheres.
Seemingly countless self-help books and seminars tell you to tap into the right side of your brain to stimulate creativity. But forget the “right-brain” myth — a new study suggests it’s how well the two brain hemispheres communicate that sets highly creative people apart.
For the study, statisticians David Dunson of Duke University and Daniele Durante of the University of Padova analyzed the network of white matter connections among 68 separate brain regions in healthy college-age volunteers.
The brain’s white matter lies underneath the outer grey matter. It is composed of bundles of wires, or axons, which connect billions of neurons and carry electrical signals between them.
A team led by neuroscientist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico collected the data using an MRI technique called diffusion tensor imaging, which allows researchers to peer through the skull of a living person and trace the paths of all the axons by following the movement of water along them. Computers then comb through each of the 1-gigabyte scans and convert them to three-dimensional maps — wiring diagrams of the brain.
Jung’s team used a combination of tests to assess creativity. Some were measures of a type of problem-solving called “divergent thinking,” or the ability to come up with many answers to a question. They asked people to draw as many geometric designs as they could in five minutes. They also asked people to list as many new uses as they could for everyday objects, such as a brick or a paper clip. The participants also filled out a questionnaire about their achievements in ten areas, including the visual arts, music, creative writing, dance, cooking and science.
The responses were used to calculate a composite creativity score for each person.
Dunson and Durante trained computers to sift through the data and identify differences in brain structure.
They found no statistical differences in connectivity within hemispheres, or between men and women. But when they compared people who scored in the top 15 percent on the creativity tests with those in the bottom 15 percent, high-scoring people had significantly more connections between the right and left hemispheres.
The differences were mainly in the brain’s frontal lobe.
Dunson said their approach could also be used to predict the probability that a person will be highly creative simply based on his or her brain network structure. “Maybe by scanning a person’s brain we could tell what they’re likely to be good at,” Dunson said.
The study is part of a decade-old field, connectomics, which uses network science to understand the brain. Instead of focusing on specific brain regions in isolation, connectomics researchers use advanced brain imaging techniques to identify and map the rich, dense web of links between them.
Dunson and colleagues are now developing statistical methods to find out whether brain connectivity varies with I.Q., whose relationship to creativity is a subject of ongoing debate.
In collaboration with neurology professor Paul Thompson at the University of Southern California, they’re also using their methods for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, to help distinguish it from normal aging.

Highly creative people have significantly more white matter connections (shown in green) between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, according to a new analysis. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Daniele Durante, University of Padova.

By studying the patterns of interconnections in healthy and diseased brains, they and other researchers also hope to better understand dementia, epilepsy, schizophrenia and other neurological conditions such as traumatic brain injury or coma.
“Data sharing in neuroscience is increasingly more common as compared to only five years ago,” said Joshua Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University, who founded the Open Connectome Project and processed the raw data for the study.
Just making sense of the enormous datasets produced by brain imaging studies is a challenge, Dunson said.
Most statistical methods for analyzing brain network data focus on estimating properties of single brains, such as which regions serve as highly connected hubs. But each person’s brain is wired differently, and techniques for identifying similarities and differences in connectivity across individuals and between groups have lagged behind.

About this neuroscience research article

Funding: This research was supported by grants from the University of Padova, Italy (CPDA154381/15), the United States Office of Naval Research (N00014-14-1-0245) and the John Templeton Foundation (22156).
Source: Robin Ann Smith – Duke University
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Daniele Durante, University of Padova.
Original Research: Full open access research for “Bayesian Inference and Testing of Group Differences in Brain Networks” by Daniele Durante and David B. Dunson in Bayesian Analysis. Published online February 2017 doi:not available

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Physical Activity Benefits Creativity: Squeezing a Ball for Enhancing Creativity - stroke recovery

You're going to have to become creative with your recovery because your doctor has no clue how to get you 100% recovered. Get your mind out of the gutter, this is serious stuff. Your doctor should be able to tell you which hand used is better for creativity. Your affected one? Or your 'good' one?
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400419.2015.1087258

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DOI:

10.1080/10400419.2015.1087258

JongHan Kim^a*

pages 328-333

Publishing models and article dates explained

• Published online: 13 Nov 2015

Alert me

Abstract

Studies in embodied cognition show that physical sensations, such as touch and movement, influence cognitive processes. Two studies were conducted to test whether squeezing a soft versus a hard ball facilitates different types of creativity. Squeezing a malleable ball would increase divergent creativity by catalyzing multiple or alternative ideas, whereas squeezing a hard ball would increase convergent creativity by facilitating only a single correct response. In Study 1, participants squeezed either a hard ball or a soft ball while completing the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), a divergent creativity test. The same procedures were used in Study 2 except that the TTCT was replaced with the Remote Associates Test, a convergent creativity test. Participants who squeezed a soft ball generated more original and diverse ideas (Study 1), whereas participants who squeezed a hard ball were better at coming up with a single correct answer (Study 2).

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Sarcasm Can Stimulate This Highly Desirable Mental Skill

Has your doctor identified whether your sarcasm center was damaged or dead from your stroke? What protocols were prescribed to recover that?

Sarcasm Center Found In Brain's White Matter, Explaining Stroke Victims' Language Gap

Except that white matter doesn't control anything, it's just a communication conduit. Proving once again that our scientists need remedial training in something. 

Sarcasm Can Stimulate This Highly Desirable Mental Skill

Sarcasm can actually promote creative thinking, a new study finds.

Sarcasm may not even be detrimental to relationships, if used between people who know each other.

Despite being considered one of the lowest forms of wit, sarcasm actually requires considerable mental powers to produce.

Professor Francesca Gino, one of the study’s authors, explained:

“To create or decode sarcasm, both the expressers and recipients of sarcasm need to overcome the contradiction (i.e., psychological distance) between the literal and actual meanings of the sarcastic expressions.

This is a process that activates and is facilitated by abstraction, which in turn promotes creative thinking.”

Now researchers have discovered that sarcasm can actually cause creativity, rather than just being its byproduct.

Professor Gino said:

“Not only did we demonstrate the causal effect of expressing sarcasm on creativity and explore the relational cost sarcasm expressers and recipients have to endure, we also demonstrated, for the first time, the cognitive benefit sarcasm recipients could reap.

Additionally, for the first time, our research proposed and has shown that to minimize the relational cost while still benefiting creatively, sarcasm is better used between people who have a trusting relationship.”

Participants in the study were put into three different conditions to have a simulated conversation: neutral, sarcastic or sincere.

Professor Adam Galinsky, a study co-author, explained the results:

“Those in the sarcasm conditions subsequently performed better on creativity tasks than those in the sincere conditions or the control condition.

This suggests that sarcasm has the potential to catalyze creativity in everyone.

That being said, although not the focus of our research, it is possible that naturally creative people are also more likely to use sarcasm, making it an outcome instead of [a] cause in this relationship.”

Amongst people who are comfortable with each other, sarcasm does not seem at all detrimental.

Professor Galinsky said:

“While most previous research seems to suggest that sarcasm is detrimental to effective communication because it is perceived to be more contemptuous than sincerity, we found that, unlike sarcasm between parties who distrust each other, sarcasm between individuals who share a trusting relationship does not generate more contempt than sincerity.”

The study was published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (Huang et al., 2015).

Neurotic People Have A Surprising Mental Advantage

If you want this advantage does your doctor have a protocol to deliver it and does s/he have the right to refuse your request?

Neuroticism and Long-Time Stress Linked to Alzheimer's in Women

 Neurotic People Have A Surprising Mental Advantage

High levels of creativity may go hand-in-hand with neuroticism, a new study finds.
It’s because the area of the brain which is linked to creativity also has the tendency to over-think things and worry.
Neuroticism is characterised by negative thinking in a range of areas (take the neuroticism test here).
For a long time neurotic people were thought to have a heightened perception to threat.
This doesn’t fit the facts, though, explains Dr Adam Perkins, the study’s first author, said:

“…it’s pretty difficult to explain neuroticism in terms of magnified threat perception because high scorers often feel unhappy in situations where there is no threat at all.
The second problem is, there’s literature showing neuroticism scores are positively correlated with creativity; and so why should having a magnified view of threat objects make you good at coming up with new ideas?”

The neuroscientists noticed, though, that neurotic people have high activity in part of the medial prefrontal cortex.

New Research Says Cerebellum Contributes to Creativity

What is your doctor doing to make sure your cerebellum damage is alleviated via an efficacious stroke protocol? ANYTHING AT ALL?
http://www.visualnews.com/2015/08/18/new-research-says-cerebellum-contributes-to-creativity/
by Katy French
Whether it’s electrical stimulation of the brain, taking a walk, or doing something boring, scientists are constantly looking for ways to help us be more creative. Neuroscientists are particularly interested in which areas of the brain contribute to or control creativity, and new research is giving us a little more insight. A new study by Stanford’s School of Medicine and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design has found an unexpected link between creativity and the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls movement.  

TImg: Wiki Commons

This part of the brain has never been recognized as contributing to the creative process, but it turns out that it does play a part. For the study, researchers devised a method to test creativity—without explicitly telling participants that they were supposed to be creative—and monitored brainwave activity to identify what areas of the brain were being activated.

Participants were given two tasks: Visually depict certain words (a la Pictionary), such as “vote” or “salute,” and draw a zigzag line (a task that requires motor skills but not much creativity). While they performed the tasks, participants’ brains were monitored via MRI scans. Once the drawings were completed, participants were asked to rate how difficult the words they were given to draw were (to give researchers a sense of perceived difficulty). After the experiment, researchers analyzed and rated the drawings for creativity according to specific criteria, including accuracy of depiction, number of elements in the drawing, how elaborate or original the drawing was, etc.

What they found was surprising. Participants’ responses tracked with brainwave activity, meaning those who perceived a word to be more difficult exhibited higher activity in the left prefrontal cortex, an executive-function center responsible for attention and evaluation. But those who had produced more creative drawings exhibited low activity in the same center. The cerebellum was also particularly active for participants whose drawings were more creative—surprising as it has generally been thought to be responsible only for motor movement. In short, just drawing the zigzag lines didn’t produce nearly as much brain activity as the creative drawings did. Even more interestingly, more activity in certain areas signified a decrease in creativity.

“We found that activation of the brain’s executive-control centers — the parts of the brain that enable you to plan, organize and manage your activities — is negatively associated with creative task performance,” says Allan Reiss, MD, professor of radiology and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

“As our study also shows, sometimes a deliberate attempt to be creative may not be the best way to optimize your creativity,” Reiss says. “While greater effort to produce creative outcomes involves more activity of executive-control regions, you actually may have to reduce activity in those regions in order to achieve creative outcomes.”
What does that really mean? If you want to be more creative, don’t think so hard.
We’re down with that.

The highest form of intelligence: Sarcasm increases creativity for both expressers and recipients

When your doctor is testing your cognitive ability is sarcasm one of the testing points? My sarcasm is in full flower, both giving and receiving. What training in this is your doctor prescribing for you?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074959781500076X

• Li Huang^{a, ,} ,
• Francesca Gino^b, ,
• Adam D. Galinsky^c,

• ^a INSEAD, East Wing 1.23, Boulevard de Constance, Fontainebleau 77300, France
• ^b Harvard University, Baker Library, Bloomberg Center 447, Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02163, USA
• ^c Columbia University, 709 Uris, 3022 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA

Received 7 August 2013, Revised 22 June 2015, Accepted 1 July 2015, Available online 17 July 2015

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doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2015.07.001

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Highlights

•

Sarcasm is an instigator of conflict but also a catalyst for creativity.

•

General forms of sarcasm promote creativity through abstract thinking for both expressers and recipients.

•

Expressing sarcasm to or receiving sarcasm from trusted others increases creativity without elevating conflict.

•

We manipulated sarcasm via a simulated conversation task and a recall task.

•

We employed three different creativity measures and a well-established measure of abstract thinking.

---

Abstract

Sarcasm is ubiquitous in organizations. Despite its prevalence, we know surprisingly little about the cognitive experiences of sarcastic expressers and recipients or their behavioral implications. The current research proposes and tests a novel theoretical model in which both the construction and interpretation of sarcasm lead to greater creativity because they activate abstract thinking. Studies 1 and 2 found that both sarcasm expressers and recipients reported more conflict but also demonstrated enhanced creativity following a simulated sarcastic conversation or after recalling a sarcastic exchange. Study 3 demonstrated that sarcasm’s effect on creativity for both parties was mediated by abstract thinking and generalizes across different forms of sarcasm. Finally, Study 4 found that when participants expressed sarcasm toward or received sarcasm from a trusted other, creativity increased but conflict did not. We discuss sarcasm as a double-edged sword: despite its role in instigating conflict, it can also be a catalyst for creativity.

Creativity Tied to Cerebellum for First Time

For you cerebellar strokes out there your doctor will need to come up with a stroke protocol to fix your creativity.
http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/articles/2015/05/creativity-tied-cerebellum-first-time?

Getting Distracted Can Be A Good Thing: How And When Interruptions Help You

How is your doctor using this to help your recovery?
http://www.medicaldaily.com/getting-distracted-can-be-good-thing-how-and-when-interruptions-help-you-329434

Walking backwards boosts creativity

You are going to need one hell of a lot of creativity in order to recover because your doctor has no clue how to get you recovered.

Walking backwards boosts creativity

14 Surprising Ways To Boost Creativity

Ask your doctor what and when was the last creative thought or idea they had about stroke rehabilitation. If never or longer than 1 month ago it is time to fire them.
http://www.dailygood.org/story/1011/14-surprising-ways-to-boost-creativity-ed-decker/
1. Limit your options.
2. Don’t wait for inspiration.
3. Focus more on the problem than the solution.
4. Increase your “distance” from the creative project.
5. Work at a coffeehouse.
6. Do an intense physical workout.
7. Use the wrong hand to do an everyday task.
8. Write the end of the story first.
9. Treat stray thoughts like gold.
10. Know less, guess more.
11. Look where you’re not going.
12. Laugh out loud.
13. Do something mindful.
14. …or mindless.

Details at link.

The 18 Habits of Highly Creative People

If we are going to solve the stroke medical problem WE are going to have to be incredibly creative. Does your doctor fall into these categories at all? Is your doctor a visionary or a demented old mouse? 

The 18 Habits of Highly Creative People

While there’s no “typical” creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. Here are 18 things they do differently.

1.  They daydream.

2. They observe everything.

3.  They work the hours that work for them.

4.  They take time for solitude.

5.  They turn life’s obstacles around.

6.  They seek out new experiences.

7.  They “fail up.”

8.  They ask the big questions.

9.  They people-watch.

10.  They take risks.

11.  They view all of life as an opportunity for self-expression.

12.  They follow their true passions.

13.  They get out of their own heads.

14.  They lose track of the time.

15.  They surround themselves with beauty.

16.  They connect the dots.

17.  They constantly shake things up.

18.  They make time for mindfulness.

Fully fleshed out at the link.

 

18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently

Your doctor should be teaching you this stuff.
http://www.dailygood.org/story/679/18-things-highly-creative-people-do-differently-carolyn-gregoire/
 Here are 18 things they do differently.
1.  They daydream.

2.  They observe everything.

3.  They work the hours that work for them.

4.  They take time for solitude.

5.  They turn life's obstacles around.

6.  They seek out new experiences.

7.  They "fail up."

8.  They ask the big questions.

9.  They people-watch.

10.  They take risks.

11.  They view all of life as an opportunity for self-expression.

12.  They follow their true passions.

13.  They get out of their own heads.

14.  They lose track of the time.

15.  They surround themselves with beauty.

16.  They connect the dots.

17.  They constantly shake things up.

18.  They make time for mindfulness.

Brain integration correlates with greater creativity

Exactly how is your doctor going to test for this and then give you a stroke protocol to increase your brain integration?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/277806.php?tw
Creativity may depend on greater brain integration, according to a new study published in Creativity Research Journal by Maharishi University brain researcher Fred Travis and University West quality management researcher Yvonne Lagrosen.
Scientists refer to brain integration as mind-brain development. People with high mind-brain development are alert, interested in learning new things and disposed to see the whole picture. They think in wide circles and are emotionally stable and unselfish.
"It's a simple fact that some people stand out, and we're trying to tease out why," says Dr. Travis. "We hypothesized that something must be different about the way their brains work, and that's what we're finding."
Dr. Travis uses a measure he developed called a Brain Integration Scale. He uses EEG recording to assess frontal brain wave coherence (a measure of connectedness among the various areas of the brain) and alpha power (a measure of inner directedness of attention). He also assesses the brain's preparation response, which measures how efficiently the brain responds to a stimulus.
In all of his studies so far, top-level performers consistently show higher levels of brain integration. Previous studies by Dr. Travis and colleagues have found that greater brain integration is present in world-class athletes, top managers, and professional musicians.
This current study was conducted on 21 product-development engineers in Sweden - a group that would be expected to have high levels of creativity. Drs. Travis and Lagrosen assessed their level of creativity using standardized Torrance measures and found them to be in the 70th to 90th percentile. They also looked at their levels of brain integration, speed of processing information, speed of executive decision-making, and Sense-of-Coherence.
A canonical correlation analysis of these data yielded strong correlation between higher flexibility and originality in verbal and figural creativity tests and higher levels of brain integration, faster brain processing, faster speed of decision making, and a sense of being in control of one's situation.
"Our empirical findings highlight that creativity, in the form of flexibility and originality, is connected to whole brain functioning and psychological development," says Swedish research collaborator Dr. Lagrosen. "Since creativity is highly important for individual success, optimizing brain functioning should be a priority for every student."
"While there's a common notion that 10,000 hours of practice is necessary for high achievement, some people put in long hours and do not excel," adds Dr. Travis. "This work and other work with my Norwegian collaborator, Dr. Harald Harung, and Dr. Yvonne Lagrosen suggest that brain integration may be the inner factor that leads to outer success."
"This then raises a question," asks Dr. Travis. "Is it possible to increase one's level of brain integration, or is it simply a matter of genes (nature) or a supportive environment (nurture)?"
Regular practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique has been found in random assignment studies to increase levels of brain integration. "People who want to excel in any field should consider learning Transcendental Meditation," says Dr. Travis, "and see for themselves the effect of regular transcending on inner happiness and outer success."

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrong questions - Anthony Jay

I've been reading The Joy of Thinking Big. Our stoke associations can't even spot the wrong answer. They are focused on F.A.S.T and press releases on generic prevention ideas. The right question to ask instead - How do you save as many neurons as possible?
From there;
The Four Stages of Creativity
1.  Identify the problem
2.  Generate Many Solutions - At least 30
3.  Analyze and Choose Solutions
4.  Implement Selected Solutions

Current thinking in the stroke associations have #1 wrong, #2 is limited to
F.A.S.T and press releases, #3 doesn't seem to  have any actual researchers, #4 doesn't have any way to implement.

Being Bored at Work Can Make Us More Creative

My former job had beaten all innovation from everybody. Anything new suggested  was usually dismissed. So anything creative thought about was personal related.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130108201517.htm
Most of us think of being bored at work as a negative experience, but a new study suggests it can have positive results including an increase in creativity because it gives us time to daydream.

That is the finding of a study being presented January 9, 2013, by Dr Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman from the University of Central Lancashire at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology. The Conference is being held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Chester.

Study of the Day: Why Crowded Coffee Shops Fire Up Your Creativity

So who is going to take the initiative and study this for stroke survivors? Is this similar to the enriched environment that Dale Corbett refers to here; by Dale Corbett back in Feb. 2011

Study of the Day: Why Crowded Coffee Shops Fire Up Your Creativity

PROBLEM: To optimize creativity, how quiet or noisy should your workspace be?

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• Media Multitaskers May Have Sharper Senses
• Bilingualism May Boost Attention, Working Memory
• Email Breaks at Work Reduce Stress, Improve Productivity

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METHODOLOGY: Researchers led by Ravi Mehta conducted five experiments to understand how ambient sounds affect creative cognition. In one key trial, they tested people's creativity at different levels of background noise by asking participants to brainstorm ideas for a new type of mattress or enumerate uncommon uses for a common object.
RESULTS: Compared to a relatively quiet environment (50 decibels), a moderate level of ambient noise (70 dB) enhanced subjects' performance on the creativity tasks, while a high level of noise (85 dB) hurt it. Modest background noise, the scientists explain, creates enough of a distraction to encourage people to think more imaginatively. (Here's a helpful chart on typical noise levels.)
CONCLUSION: The next time you're stumped on a creative challenge, head to a bustling coffee shop, not the library. As the researchers write in their paper, "[I]nstead of burying oneself in a quiet room trying to figure out a solution, walking out of one's comfort zone and getting into a relatively noisy environment may trigger the brain to think abstractly, and thus generate creative ideas."
SOURCE: The full study, "Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition," is published in the Journal of Consumer Research.