Keep In Touch

Could 'Touch' be one of the best ways to stimulate your Cre8ivity?

I have absolute certainty around what I am about to assert: Western people are not touched enough! In the West (and most likely in the East) the requirement for physical contact of the appropriate kind is not met. If we are encouraged to eat our "5 a Day" of Fruit & Vegetables, how much more should be encouraged to get the equivalent nutrition for our nerve net.

And all nerves are not equal.

This is not strictly true, but I wanted to make a point to explain this handsome fellow:

He is called "Homunculus Man" - and is a generalised representation of how much of a priority the brain gives to the nerve information coming from various parts of our body.

Source: DC Injury Clinic.

With so much of our nervous system's commitment to lips and fingers, it's not surprising that greeting one another with a kiss or by shaking one another's hands are such important 'rituals' in our cultures... and why they are so revolting if you don't want to kiss that elderly relative!!!

What On Earth Has This Got To Do With Creativity or Cre8ivity?

Consider the investment. Your body is 'listening' to your hands and your lips and tongue. Your brain gives them priority. Any cre8ive strategy that respects this is already bound to be given attention - and attention is the first vital step towards habit. In fact in another blog, I mentioned the four steps to habit:

Attention... Interest... Desire... Action!

This is one reason why 'hands-on' learning is so much more effective. It engages the brain.

Strategy One: Touch Stuff!

I'm a massive evangelist for Mind Mapping - Tony Buzan's colourful, graphical and engaging technique for organising our thoughts on paper. Mind Mapping is both Art form and good Science. By deliberately using paper that feels great to use, we are building pleasant associations with using the technique. That's only where my fetish for good stationery begins! Oh the joy of great pens and pencils - especially pencils. You can 'feel' the learning growing and developing as you shade and colour in portions of the map you are making. You can sense the neurons building new connections as your Mind Map mirrors your mind. You are literally creating new knowledge.

Strategy Two: Associate!

Our friends who are fans of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP for short) rightly rave about the effectiveness of 'Anchoring'. Anchoring is a technique of linking sensory stimuli (ideally a trinity of seeing, hearing and touch) to a desired state of mind - such as 'creativity' or even 'cre8ivity'!

By remembering times when you were particularly proud of your creativity, you can set up a neural reminder of that 'state' by consciously linking the memory to three sensory triggers. So you might 'see' an icon or picture or movie in your mind's eye that is your symbol and visual reminder for 'being in a creative state'. You might add a soundtrack - music, sound effects and even our power phrase, "I Am Creative!" [Said with authority and conviction, of course, using a Hollywood Movie Trailer voice!] And, most relevant to today's blog, you may do a simple action with your hands or your lips that is the 'switch' to remind your brain to access the memory of what it is like to be creative now.

Isn't 'reminder' an interesting word - to reload something into your 'mind'!

This touch-based trigger could include Strategy One. For example, I use four-colour pens as part of my thinking, creative and coaching processes (you know the ones where you have four different inks in one pen?) I call this my ThINKpen? - full of thINKing INK! Each colour is used 'on purpose' to mean something. I can harness my brain's 'over' commitment of neurons to my hands and lips by taking my ThINKpen and touching it to my lips in a ritualised way. I can even make the sound and feeling of changing which ink is in the barrel as a reminder of the 4 creative states I teach (another blog).

Cre8ive and Your "8 a Day"

Yes, I'm well aware that my 'Cre8' version of 'Create' is rather cheesy... but you know how much notice your brain now takes of your tongue - cheesy tastes good! Joking aside, I use 'Cre8' because it also works as Cre∞ - turning the 8 into the ∞ symbol for infinity. I really do believe your capacity to become more and more creative is practically infinite. This belief is borne out by a quantifiable expansion in the areas of the brain associated with stimulating the senses. For example, a London Taxi Driver, who has learned 'The Knowledge' (as they call the memorisation of all routes around London) will have a more highly developed Hippocampus. Songbirds too show expansion in the Hippocampus when they learn each successive season's song. Maybe there is creative power in karaoke?

Playing with the idea of '8 a Day', maybe, just maybe, it would pay off if we had 8 touch points a day - reminding us to be or to do something 'creative'? I've just loaded up an App on my iPhone to trigger Westminster Chimes on the quarter hour (hour, quarter past, half hour, quarter to). This is to remind me to be mindful, and, at the 45 minute chime, to take a brain break - a physical break.

A posture break every 45 mins (just for 20 seconds) really boosts your health and energy levels - so even just that activity would give me my '8 a Day' for Cre8ivity in any one 8 hour working session.

Give it a go, notice your progress, and keep in touch!

And perhaps it would be an idea to give a colleague, a trusted colleague, a creative hug once in a while!

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