What this daydreaming researcher learned
from eight weeks of mindfulness meditation
Little by little, the nature of my generalized anxiety did start to change. I use the word ” change” very carefully here. I can’t say my anxiety completely went away, but my relationship to it changed. Instead of feeling the emotion and acting on it (e.g., wanting to run home and curl up under my covers and hide), I started to just notice it. Yes, non-judgmentally. But I’d also dare to say, compassionately.
Which brings us to the mindfulness-creativity connection. Before I took the 8-week course, there was a particular paradox in the field that just didn’t make any sense to me. On the one hand, the neuroscience of creativity literature shows that the ” default mode network” — which is involved in mind-wandering and the construction of our sense of self– is absolutely essential for creative thinking. On the other hand, some mindfulness studies were showing that mindfulness practice reduces default mode network activity but simultaneously increases creative thinking. How can this be??! How can the brain network most associated with daydreaming both contribute and not contribute to creative thinking?
Source – read the full article at One Skeptical Scientist’s Mindfulness Journey
