Genius: A few Power Naps Away?
Introduction
At the risk of sounding over dramatic, creativity is dying. Now if experts are to be believed this is a major issue, ideas are profitable things:
“CEOs say creativity is the #1 factor for future success.” – IBM
“Creativity is or is related to 9 of the top 10 skills that global executives say is essential for 2020 and beyond.”– World Economic Forum
“According to the survey 54% of the hindrance to company growth can be associated with a lack of generation of new usable ideas” – BCG Global Innovation Survey
In “The Creativity Crisis ” analysts stated that “ fluid original thinking in the workplace has been on a decline since the 20th century.
Employees are generating not only fewer ideas or solutions to open-ended questions or challenges, but also fewer unusual or unique ideas than those in preceding decades”.
There are fears in all fields that workers are finding it increasingly difficult to gain inspiration and develop innovative ideas.
Now it all sounds doom and gloom but it seems there's a solution that’s surprisingly simple and effective.
What if I told you the fix to the workplace creativity crisis should be taking a nap? Not convinced?
Well, there’s science to back it up I promise, in the meantime have a look at these famous examples of people napping on the job.
Microscopic Dreams
Watson
Until Dr James Watson saw a winding flight of stairs in a fantasy in 1953, nobody had fostered the possibility of a twofold helix twisting design for our DNA.
The game changed that evening, when Watson took a nap and saw it, proceeding to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.
Kekule
Kekule, the German scientific expert who found the ring design of benzene is viewed as one of the chief authors of present day natural science.
Kekule says he had finished work and drifted off to sleep at his desk. He saw molecules spinning and moving before his eyes.
The molecules then, at that point, started to reassemble themselves into long lines that appeared to move about in a snake like movement. As he watched the snake dance, the vision advanced until the snake ate up its own tail.
Bogey Tales
Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevensons dream-prompted noises woke his significant other, Fanny, who then woke him up accordingly.
Surprised, he told her, "Why’d you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale."
The circumstance took a horrendous turn when Fanny thought the primary draft of the story was garbage and threw it out.
Stevenson quickly rewrote the 30,000 word story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in three-days.
It wound up selling so well that the book lifted the Stevenson's into the clear financially.
Cameron
In a meeting on "The Terminator" Blu-Ray, Cameron states he came up with the early idea for the movie franchise while he was bed ridden in Rome.
"I was wiped out at that point. I had a high fever." Cameron said. "I was simply lying on the bed thinking and thought of this odd idea….”
Thus, a great deal of these fantasy and bad dream characteristics enter the film. Truth be told, the fever dream incredibly motivated the way the T-800 is shown in the movies.
Taking Lectures In Your Sleep
Einstein
A field of cows caused Albert Einstein's ideas of relativity.
In his dream, Einstein was talking to a rancher concerning cows being in an electric barrier.
However the rancher saw something other than what's expected.
Einstein stirred with this, realising that different points of view would cause different perceptions of the same and the theory of relativity started to take shape.
Ramanujan
The self-educated number related wonder from India Ramanujan, is viewed as one of the best numerical virtuosos to at any point living. The man the movie "the man who knew infinity" was based on.
He made considerable commitments to hypothesis of numbers, curved capacities, endless series and demonstrated in excess of 3,000 mathematical theories during his life.
Ramanujan said that the understanding for his work came to him in his dreams on many occasions.
Ramanujan described that, often as he slept, he would dream of conversations with the Hindu goddess Namakkal.
She gave him complex numerical recipes again and again, which he could then test and check after waking.
To Be Conscious Or Not To Be
So what's happening? Where were these people getting their creative breaks from? And how can this be used to improve workplace creativity?
First off we have to be aware of 2 things, the conscious and the unconscious.
The conscious is what you're currently giving your attention to, the unconscious is everything else in the background that doesn’t have your attention.
Its estimated around 95 percent of your creativity, comes from this unconscious side and these two parts are in constant convocation.
For example, say you're trying to come up with a new company logo. While you're there rubbing your chin the conscious mind asks the unconscious mind for some inspiration.
The unconscious mind looks through the archives of your memories and brings a few things back, say a memory of a childhood cartoon you watched or a pattern you saw on the way to work but didn’t pay much attention to.
These unconscious memories all get knitted together in a package brought back to your conscious surface awareness as the new idea you're waiting for.
Now while both the conscious and unconscious are always active one tends to have more influence than the other at different times.
The unconscious runs most of the show while your attention is more restful, the conscious while you're more focused and alert.
Bridging The Gap
Now here’s the interesting bit, short sessions of napping seem to train the mind to “walk” between the conscious and unconscious more often, therefore more easily.
This easier communication between the conscious and unconscious mind has been shown to improve creativity, problem solving and innovative thinking greatly.
Now the important factor here isn’t just increasing the time of the rest session but increasing the number of rest sessions that day.
Over time the two start to “blend” closer together promoting stronger communication between them and therefore greater creativity and problem solving.
So what do you think, is creativity on the decline? If you answer yes and you are noticing such problems in your own business perhaps you're in need of one of our resting pods.
Take time to contact us to see if we can help your business get back to creativity.