Why do so many ideas emerge during walks, showers, and daydreams? And why, amid furious brainstorming sessions, are results often underwhelming (though, results aside, brainstorming does seem to build stronger teams)?
One reason may be that human brains, like other human organs, need time to relax as well as time to fire on all cylinders. A brainstorming meeting is not exactly relaxing, generating pressure to produce your best brilliance in the next 40 minutes while other attendees sit there and possibly judge your ideas.
Balance in the human body
Balance takes many forms in the human body, but in layperson’s terms, the balance between “relax and regenerate” and “fire on all cylinders” rests on the autonomic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system “controls the automatic functions of your body that you need to survive. These are processes you don’t think about and that your brain manages while you’re awake or asleep.”1 It’s not the part of the nervous system that drives us to pull our hand away if we touch a mug that’s too hot, or the part we use to walk from our favorite armchair to the kitchen to make tea or coffee.
According to Cleveland Clinic2, the autonomic nervous system is split into three branches: sympathetic (in non-jargon terms, the “Type A activator”), parasympathetic (the “laid-back deactivator”), and enteric (which manages digestion).
When we relax (whether sleeping, meditating, or walking in nature), the sympathetic nervous system tends to give way a bit, leaving room for the parasympathetic nervous system to slip in and tone things down. When we awake from a deep sleep, fully relaxed, we can thank our parasympathetic nervous system.
So, back to our creativity analogy. Optimal creativity and innovation require balance. We do the preparatory work in a sympathetic state: reading, researching, seeking, learning, skill-building. But intuition often sparks at unexpected times, when we’re least looking for it. When we’re listening to birds chirping in the trees, singing our favorite song in the shower, assembling a jigsaw puzzle, or letting our mind meander down so-called unproductive paths as we walk.
Society’s current state is unbalanced
The balance between the two branches of the autonomic nervous system can serve as an interesting analogy for modern society. In this analogy, modern society can be described as highly sympathetic dominant and very un-parasympathetic. It encourages us to do and seek “more, more, more!”, to strive, to worry about what we haven’t done yet, to meet our goals. Those activities are vital for human advancement (well, maybe not the worry part)—but without a parasympathetic counterbalance, society isn’t well.
And as a person living in an unbalanced, unwell society, it’s easy to fall out of balance at the individual level too. How many truly relaxed people do you know? We are all part of the systems we live in, having interrelated experiences, and if the systems are out of balance, our own chances of finding balance decline.
Both relaxation and striving are necessary, but too often, only one is nourished.
But a left brain without a right brain can’t function. A sympathetic nervous system without a parasympathetic nervous system can’t produce an optimally functioning human body. And, though many societies strongly favor productivity over relaxation, counterintuitively, the best way to achieve optimal productivity is to seek and foster balance.
“Autonomic Nervous System.” Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23273-autonomic-nervous-system
“Autonomic Nervous System.” Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23273-autonomic-nervous-system
I wonder if we are simply trying to manage too many thoughts at once, not just multi-tasking, but too many considerations that are drawing our energy and processing power, hence stressed out. Also, thanks for the breakdown of the autonomic system!
This was a great explanation Stephanie. I had never realized the breakdown in these functions. So interesting. It is wild how the job is kinda segregated. Turn something on and turn something off sort of. In my work career I was involved at different times with coordinating brainstorming sessions and other times doing project post-mortems. Interesting the effect on people but both of them drain your energy. After each, it would have been nice to share a glass of wine :) Both of them make the case for a good night sleep!