Creativity & Brain Function
The Female Brain
Your brain is physically different from a man’s brain. As a woman we are hardwired to be planners, organizers, decision makers and creative visionaries. Yet we can often feel that due to tiredness and stress we are not as clear or creative as we know we can be and would like to be.
Our ability to juggle and manage running a business or work life, remembering our shopping list and organising our children’s schedules and getting adequate sleep and nutrition can become stretched and stressful!
When stressed we go into a state of emergency, and we don’t have time to think things through. We may make decisions or say things that we regret, that are harmful to ourselves or others. We are literally off-line. Our prefrontal cortex, the seat of the brain’s executive judgment is switched off and our survival instinct or fight flight takes control.
Many women from all walks of life have turned to Transcendental Meditation to help reset the dominance of the ‘fight-flight survival instinct’. Others turn to TM for help to unfold the hidden resources within their brain.
What happens to your brain during TM
During Transcendental Meditation the conscious mind settles effortlessly into stillness, a state of restful alertness or often called relaxed inner wakefulness. Neuroscientists explain transcending produces high-power alpha waves that become synchronous, rising and falling together in a highly coherent way.
Using the hidden resources of your brain
The very pleasant experience of relaxed inner wakefulness or transcending automatically down regulates the fight flight survival instinct. As the coherence spreads throughout the brain, blood flow increases towards the prefrontal cortex—the seat of your brain’s executive judgment releasing the use of hidden brain resources to support you in your daily activities and life enjoyment.
Scientific Research on the TM technique shows
Higher levels of creativity
- Greater efficiency in learning new concepts
- More principled moral reasoning
- Higher verbal intelligence IQ
- Less neuroticism
- Higher academic achievement
- Greater neurological efficiency (H-reflex)
Improved memory and learning ability
- Increased intelligence
- Increased creativity and problem solving
- Emotional stability
- Increased neurological efficiency
- Increased orderliness of thinking
Improved Memory
University students who learned the TM program showed after 40 days improved clustering in short-term memory, indicating increased organization of the thinking process, in comparison to randomly assigned controls who sat with closed eyes twice daily.
Reference: Scientific Research on the TM Programme: Collected Papers Vol 1: 385–392, 1977.