Does Exercise Enhance Creativity? | Big Think
Does Exercise Enhance Creativity?
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Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki is hard at work in her lab experimenting with a new hypothesis: Can you stimulate creativity through exercise? She thinks so, and she’s got a wide array of research backing her up.
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WENDY SUZUKI:
Dr. Wendy A. Suzuki is a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University. She received her undergraduate degree in Physiology and Human Anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987, studying with Prof. Marion C. Diamond, a leader in the field of brain plasticity. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from U.C. San Diego in 1993 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before accepting her faculty position at New York University in 1998. Dr. Suzuki is author of the book Healthy Brain, Happy Life: A Personal Program to Activate Your Brain and Do Everything Better.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Wendy Suzuki: One of the most fascinating things about creativity is that the most recent studies are showing that it’s not just one side of the brain or the other side of the brain that everybody will tell you. It really is the most creative people are using both sides of the brain together. So this is an important concept that the brain is subdivided into two major hemispheres. We have two of each structure. Almost all the structures of our brain are paired. So the idea is well one side of the brain is for certain things and the other side of the brain is important for other things. And the one thing we can say for sure is yes, language is on the left side of the brain. But for creativity it actually makes more sense to me that with a function so broad as that, you would benefit from having the most cross talk possible between all parts of your brain. In fact that’s exactly what the neuroscience is showing. So then once we start to understand — we’re starting to understand a little bit about the brain circuits involved in creativity, that involves a lot the prefrontal cortex as you might expect. Then the question is, well, how do I up my creativity? That’s what everybody is interested in.
Well there is exciting new evidence that one of the functions of the hippocampus, an area that we know is important for long-term memory is that it’s not only important for long-term memory, but it’s critical for the function of imagination. So people have been testing people with other people, patients with damage to the hippocampi for long periods of time. No surprise they had memory impairments. They were amnesic. But one day an experimenter back in 2007 tested amnesic patients on tasks of imagination. And she asked them can you imagine a situation that you’ve never experienced before. In this case it was imagine a tropical beach. And she compared the responses to people age matched and education matched people without hippocampal damage.
What she found was these hippocampal patients, these amnesic patients who had normal language abilities, were unable to imagine a future scenario. They could say things like well, there’s blue ocean; there might be sand. But they couldn’t elaborate at all. Whereas control patients, or control subjects were able to talk all about, you know, what the beach looked like, the buildings on the beach, the boats going past them. And this led other researchers to image the brains of subjects, normal subjects as they were remembering things. And when they remembered things the hippocampus lit up. But then they asked well imagine something new. And in that situation the hippocampus lit up again. So there’s multiple modes of evidence suggesting the hippocampus is not only involved in memory but is also important for imagination. A key component of creativity. We know that exercise stimulates what we can neurogenesis or the birth of brand-new brain cells in the hippocampus. But because of those brand new brain cells in my hippocampus I’m also enhancing my imagination. So the hypothesis that I’m working on in my lab is: Can exercise actually enhance creativity?
Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki is hard at work in her lab experimenting with a new hypothesis: Can you stimulate creativity through exercise? She thinks so, and she’s got a wide array of research backing her up.
@datboimart.8698
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
PLACET MIHI AUXILIUM..! Why am i always overthinking and i cant stop it, and am having a problem in my inner imaginative world that i cant get out of it and it make me not connected to things like social normal primative things like being social,douting gods existence,and am not interested in anything more than findind truth of everything,….the point is how can i control all of the truth i know so as to cope with that reality,please help me with that if you can.
@javialvarez5088
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Riding a suzuki would qualify as axercise?
@jimprzybytek181
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Hunger enhances creativity
@TheRunningArtistBruceKatlin
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Yes! It's both sides of the brain. I get in the "flow" by running and painting together in order to lower the volume.
@OptimizeYourJourney
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Creativity is a by-product of a collection of influences , i animated a book on creativity , it's the art of stealing ideas and mixing them up to come up with something new .
@СпартакВълев
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Big think
@СпартакВълев
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Big think
@s3oood2008
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Why athletes aren't creative ?!!!!
@swanbrown
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Halfway through, I realized I was leaning away from the screen. Strange. It felt like someone was getting up in my face.
Probably just me.
@IanAtkinson555
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Doesn't seem to apply to Stephen Hawking. He is one of the most creative people the world has ever seen, but he couldn't exercise even if he wanted to.
@mohamedespace5031
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Je suis le prof Mohamed, and I susbcribe to your chanel. I'am available to do a vidéo on your chanel Let a comment on mine.
@poly88888888
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
the "right-left" hemsphere it is proven to be a myth. Make a research before you post something so silly
@216trixie
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
That jacket color doesn't complement her cheekbones.
@pure_g9
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
First of all nothing new, ability to create things with the mind, imagination can and should be trained. It's been circulating the personal Development world for ages, I myself noticed that I can visualise more detailed and more powerful things with time.
However using it for curing diseases and improving memory sounds amazing.
Second of all you won't get many answers here unless you buy a book.
@lucidmoses
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
There is an old saying that's something like, "There are no new idea's, just variations on old ones." There does seem to be SOME truth in that. Therefor recalling things may be needed for creating. i.e. the things to very. Anyway… Just thoughts on this.
@ChipmunksPlan
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
A great book about where creativity comes from and what it is, is Imagine by John Lehrer
@rambo2670
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
I tend to agree with this video. I'm significantly more creative when I'm exercising regularly than when I'm not.
@adrianglass1679
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Imagination is not about creating 'future scenarios' . It is about redefining the present reality and making it more so; arts, music, fashion etc. Overextending future possibilities will stress the brain leading to anxiety, depression.
@maybesoda
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Any type of exercise? It didn't specify if it was mental or physic exercise though…
@LyingPrauses
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
iirc, Immortal Technique, a rapper, claims when he's getting in the zone to rap, starves himself, and exercises. could this help? obv not starving yourself, but he does maintain a huge underground reputation and is easily in my top 3 best rap artists of this century. he came out in early 2000's and still maintains a strong rep, sooo maybe there's something to this?
@snappetbattre5469
November 2, 2025 at 3:05 pm
somehow she reminds me of Michio Kaku
Comments are closed.