The Importance of Solitude to Our Creative Thinking

Every problem or challenge in our personal or professional lives can only be resolved through the creative process. As Charles Darwin so frequently, and I paraphrase: it's not the strongest of the species or the most intelligent who survived but the most adaptable to change". That's why creativity is so important to our survival.

But how can you make that happen in a world where we are inundated with emails, newsfeeds, never-ending texts, and a blizzard of social media updates? It often feels like we are running on hamster wheels with no end in sight. Even young people of the day suffer from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), so they are obsessed with checking their social media outlets to see what else they should be doing.

But what's interesting is that the greatest breakthroughs and creative thinkers got their major breakthroughs when they were not engaged in social media and contact with their fellow beings.

Elon Musk was haunted in his dreams by the thought that life on Earth faced extinction from either overheated climate or the impact of asteroids, so where would there be an inhabitable planet? Since NASA was losing interest in manned space, Mr. Musk founded a company that ultimately led to the launch and success called SpaceX.

Steven Jobs was famous for his long walks in which he imagined new technological breakthroughs, first using PCs and then to the creation of devices such as the iPhone.

Albert Einstein was famous for saying: "The quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

But even reaching back in history for all of us who have endured chemistry classes and learned the periodic table, it is instructive to learn it was conceived in a dream.

While we sleep, our brain is busy organizing and consolidating the ideas, images, and bits of information that occupy our waking hours. Mendeleev's waking mind was so vigorously occupied with the quest for a classification system that would order the elements that it all formed in my head, but he lamented, "But I can't express it." It was only when he reentered his own head under the spell of sleep's uninhibited state that the disjointed bits fell into a pattern, and the larger idea expressed itself.

Mendeleev himself would recount in his diary: "I saw in a dream a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper."

Ask yourself where you got your greatest creative ideas. In working with executive teams, I have been told that their ideas come to them while they're in the shower, driving their car to work, or in the middle of the night. I get most of my most creative ideas that have helped me lead successful companies in a swimming pool!

Why is that?

Without getting into the details, neuroscientists now identify how the brain functions. The frontal cortex of our brain acts as the executive function, managing the constant flow of incoming information. We might receive as many as 4,000 messages a day from our environment.

They have learned that executive function turns down and frequently off during moments of solitude or sleep. That's when creative ideas can emerge because our brains are not fighting incoming information. The brain's right hemisphere, the source of creativity, is free to explore new ideas. We have some wildest dreams because no governor can stop our brains from imagining new and different creative thoughts.

There are important other reasons for this. When we are free from external influences, such as social settings, when the opinions and expectations of others can influence how we think leads to our ability to think uninhibitedly. We do not feel any pressure to conform to the opinions and judgment of others.

The former Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University Chicago, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, pointed out that solitude can lead to a state of flow that allows us to pursue our most creative ambitions deeply immersed in our work and uninhibited by practical considerations.

Just ask yourself why so many of us like to be around natural bodies of water, including walking beaches, taking showers, or even building our homes despite hurricane warnings. It's because inwardly, we crave the ability to have a solitary, slow-paced experience in a geography that assures that possibility.

So, if you plan your day and look for ways to resolve your most daunting challenges or problems, carve out time every day for solitude. Silence your cell phone, ignore computers, and pick a place, whether a dark room, shower, a lonely walk, or a swimming pool, where you can think uninhibitedly and allow your creative brain to emerge.

I might add that you do not need to be a doctor now to recognize that solitude is not only helpful in the creative process of her mind but also physiologically for our brain and body. All of us need a break from our ever-active minds!