Innovation

Brainpower Newsletter

This week: a new article on innovation as a state of mind, from my website "999 Ideas." I also am introducing a new section to the newsletter, which will be in most issues. "This Week's Brainpower Practice," will have a quick technique to use for boosting your brainpower.

We all know the myth of innovation as a sudden flash of insight that comes from nowhere. It is that "aha" moment, or that light bulb turning on in the mind. This is true to an extent. Einstein, for example, really did get flashes of insight while shaving in the morning. Of course, he was working on the particular problems he had insight into. He didn't suddenly have ideas for new kitchen gadgets or movie plots.

In other words, the innovations he came up, no matter how "sudden" the insightful idea was, came from past and present mental work. Like a singer who works at his craft for ten years and then becomes an "overnight success," innovative people only have "sudden" flashes of insight and new ideas because they have habitually worked and thought in certain ways for some time. To become an innovative thinker, then, why not start cultivating those mental habits?

Problems are opportunities. The concept of a "problem" may have a negative connotations, such as being a hassle or stressful, but any problem can lead to an innovation that improves our lives. Not knowing the time lead to small clocks on our wrists. Disease lead to sanitary sewer systems. Look for opportunity in every problem. Even a mundane problem like not having enough storage space in your home could lead to...

Continued at:
http://www.999ideas.com/innovation.html

Try to get in the habit of seeing the other side of arguments. Every time you catch yourself making a argument or taking a position on an issue, imagine what you would say if you had to argue the other side. This is a powerful way to get out of ruts and expand the range of your thoughts.

Regular meditation changes the structure of the brain. At the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Sara Lazar and other researchers compared 15 meditators to 15 non-meditators, using MRI. The meditators had experience ranging from one to thirty years.

It was determined that meditating increases the thickness of the cortex in those areas that are involved in sensory processing and attention. These are the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula. Other studies have shown that highly skilled musicians and linguists also have thickening in the relevant areas of the cortex.

Basically, the areas of the brain that you exercise, grow bigger. Lazar says that this is not necessarily from new neurons, but from bigger blood vessels and supporting structures like glia and astrocytes, and increased branching and connections. Lazar cites this as evidence that yogis are not "just sitting there doing nothing."

Source: New Scientist

My opinion: Meditate for better brain function, but too much meditation may lead to less creative work. This is my own speculation, and has not been proven. Meditating has been proven to have many benefits, but too much of almost anything is usually counter-productive. In fact, at least one study has shown that the benefits of moderate meditation (an hour or less daily) are not increased with more time spent meditating.

- The swastika was originally a symbol of peace and honor. It is still used by Buddhists today.

- In most print advertisements that have watches in the photo, the time displayed on the watch is 10:10.

-Julius Caesar was the first person known to encode communications. He used what has become known as the Caesar Cipher.

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Until next time,

Steve

www.IncreaseBrainPower.com

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