Modern hustle culture teaches us that it’s important to be productive from sun up to sun down, and that the only way to progress is to try twice as hard.  Free time is viewed as time when you’re not living up to your potential and connected to traits like laziness and sloth.  For freelancers or anyone in a profession where creativity is key, the pressure to fill all your time with work or busy-ness can be even more pronounced.                 However, research finds that people who enjoy times of leisure and a slower pace might...

            There’s a lot of stigma attached to how much money you make being representative of your overall intelligence, especially in blue-collared jobs versus white-collared jobs.  However, new research shows that based on IQ tests, this prejudice doesn’t have a scientific basis.                 Researchers from Sweden at the Linköping University interpreted results from cognitive performance tests with information about wages earned from participants.  They found that as wages increase, a plateau occurs between IQ and income.  Right around an annual income of 60,000 euros, those with top earning actually had a slightly worse IQ score...

                The mind-body connection is continuing to take us by surprise.  Recent research has found that being under stress immediately impacts the body and its’ performance, even down to the spine.                 A team of researchers from Ohio State University tested what happens to the body during lifting when working through information that is contrary to what the participants believed.  This type of mental stress is related to the effects of working through cognitive dissonance, which is the phenomenon that occurs when people have to think about things which don’t match what they...

              When it comes to planning, a recent study finds that planning skills can be learned and improved even it’s not inherent to someone’s particular nature.  Thinking ahead has been linked to better decision-making capabilities, but there hasn’t been a lot of information about how the brain achieves this.                  To learn more about people’s “planning depth”, a team of researchers from NYU teamed up to find out if it’s possible to learn this skill.  They embellished the classic tic-tac-toe game to have more evolved decision-making steps and asked the participants playing the game...

              Sometimes it’s easy to see if someone expresses their creativity more than others, but what if creativity could actually be measured?  Scientists believe they’ve found a way to measure—and test—your creativity with a simple exercise.                                Based on research from three international universities, measuring creativity is as simple as a 4- minute test, which you can give yourself and your friends!  It’s called the Divergent Association Task which was created by a McGill University Psychiatry graduate.  In this exercise, you think of 10 words in a 4-minute period that are as unrelated from...

                 You may have heard that you can only relate to someone or something based on your previous experiences, but what’s happening in the brain to cause that phenomenon?                 Researchers have determined that your perception is influenced by your past experiences, starting with your visual processing.  This isn’t just confined to how the brain processes visual input, but even the manner that your eyes perceive something is going to be different based on what you’ve seen in the past.                  It’s also influenced by what action you took when you saw something similar in the past.  If you saw...

               When you’re looking for a boost to amp up your creativity, it’s easy to start off with the usual nootropics (and, more often than not, that common nootropic usually an arm’s length away: coffee).  However, creativity may start off more with the foundations of your diet, instead of things you add in to supplement it.                 According to new research from cognitive psychologists, some of the nutrients and neurotransmitter building blocks that are in fruit and almonds may have a key role in boosting creativity.  Some proponents of the all-fruit diet believe that...

               Have you heard of the one-hit wonders?  They’re the songwriters, composers, or authors who produce stellar works on their very first attempt—but they struggle to continue to reproduce the same caliber of work afterwards. While it may seem counterintuitive, this is a true phenomenon which, once understood, can help you or your team avoid this creative pitfall.                 Researchers from Washington University (St. Louis), investigated this effect, trying to understand why some people can be continuously creative, while others struggle to maintain that same level of creativity in their work as time goes...

               The old adage “something is better than nothing” is true even when you’re looking at maximizing your potential for an extra long life.  The secret may not be in up-and-coming supplements, but just keeping busy.                 We’ve learned how just small amounts of exercise can benefit the brain and keep normal aging processes for the brain and body at bay, and we’re learning more and more than 10,000 steps per day may not be a magic number.  In a recent study from the University of Sydney, we’ve learned that even if you’re not...

            When you’re serious about nootropics, you’re serious about brain health.  It’s now more important than ever to take steps to reduce the chances of suffering through the consequences of inflammation, pollution, and poor mental performance.  Most of the key ways that nootropics help us achieve better and more efficient cognitive performance is through keeping the brain as healthy as it can be, now and in the long-term.                 Recently published in the Journal of Physiology, a research team has found that preventing neurodegeneration due to aging relies on the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) protein. ...

             Taking time to get out of the urban environment and relax in forest or park spaces relieves mental stress and improves emotional health, but the impact of a busy urban environment on the brain may be more significant than previously thought.  Based on recent research from the University of British Columbia, the brain is extremely sensitive to not just the environment, but the level of pollution contained within its environment.                 The study focused on measuring cognitive function with MRI on healthy adults and compared the differences between cognitive function when exposed to pollution...

              Singing while working is something that’s associated with fishermen, miners, wool crafters, and many more types of occupations.  It’s a common adage that whistling while you work makes the time go by faster, and many workplaces utilize background ambient music.  It turns out that listening to pleasant music while working isn’t just helping you find your way through tedious or otherwise boring tasks, but it may be enhancing your creativity.                 A study from a few years ago by the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, studied the effects of music (specifically, different...