We humans are a really unique species, out of all the hundreds of millions of others. I mean, yeah, every species has something unique about them but our uniqueness transcends the basic survival game that other species are stuck in.

To a certain extent we are too, but that is not the point I’m trying to make. We are an intelligent species and we are conscious about our intelligence and are capable of using this to mould our very surroundings according to our own whims, as today’s modern world bears witness.

If intelligence wasn’t enough to make us unique, we have yet another immensely valuable asset and that is creativity. There are differing thoughts as to whether our creativity is just a subset of our intelligence or it is something exclusive altogether.

Regardless, there is no doubt that we are problem solvers and thanks to the dual aspect of our intelligence, we can use logic and critical thinking or use our creativity to push our species even further.

Are We Strictly One or The Other?

It is widely believed that each of us is either right brained or left brained. Right brained, if we tend to be creative and artistic and left brained, if we are analytical and logical in our thinking.

First of all, recent studies have shown that be it one or the other, we use our entire brains for what we are doing and the two parts of the brain are not working in isolation.

Secondly, while it is true that as individuals we may lean more towards the analytical part or creative part, but each of us has both these abilities and it is not strictly one or the other. It’s just that these are different ways of thinking and we happen to choose one way more than the other depending on who we are.

For the purposes of today’s post however, let me talk about creativity because that to me is a more ‘human’ ability. Creativity is still somewhat of a mystery because even if you are naturally creative, you won’t have continuous spurts of “aha” moments.

This led me to explore why that is so and how our creativity is affected by various factors and I learned something that might sound strange and counter-intuitive but is true.

We Are More Creative When Tired

Yes, that sentence doesn’t sound right at first because all we want to do is sleep or rest when we are tired and so, someone suggesting that we are at our best (creatively speaking) when we are tired, sounds bizarre!

That is true however, according to a study conducted by Mareike Wieth and Rose Zacks. Basically, it has to do with how distracted we are when we are tired and how that actually help us think creatively.

Imagine you are working on something and you are feeling tired. We tend to be more distracted when we are tired and thus we are unable to focus. But that is where the increased creativity comes from.

We all know creativity is all about thinking out of the box and so when we are less focused, we tend to be distracted and open to a broader range of information. This allows us to look at the task at hand in a different light and is often the source of those coveted “Aha!” moments.

I can speak from personal experience that most of the times, it is at times when I am not completely at my best and my brain is not working that efficiently, I tend to write articles that in my opinion are better than when I write them when I am fresh and at my best. Have you felt something similar too?