How To Boost Your Creativity

You found a quiet spot to sit by yourself and think. You’re focused on a creative task. But nothing comes to mind. If you want to spark your brain cells, there’s a surprising way to get your creativity operating at a higher level.

Get the people around you to create a moderate hubbub. Or turn on a radio. When scientists tested people’s creative endeavors, they found that having a mild level of background noise such as you might find in a Starbucks can help you find solutions to tasks that require inventiveness.  Too much noise, they found, doesn’t help. But background noise at around the level of 70 decibels (about the noise level of a normal conversation) seemed to bump up creativity.

The researchers believe you should not bury yourself “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.”