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Does insomnia help or hinder creativity?

Insomnia is one of the disturbs that can ruin the daily life of a person because it is a suffering not only by night for the impossibility to sleep a minimum number of hours every night, but also during the day for the lack of mental lucidity, attention, concentration ability and frequent sleepiness states. All this is particularly dangerous at work and during driving and cause of dangerous and fatal accidents.

A test made in 2004 by some researchers of the University of Luebeck, Germany and reported on Nature shows just this decline of mental efficiency after restless nights; the test was performed on two groups of persons that had to resolve a mathematics problem that needed some intuition to be resolved. One group was allowed to sleep the night before the test for 8 hours and the other was kept awake all the night the same night. The results were that 59% of the rested persons resolved the problem and only 25% of the sleepless could do the same. Of course, this wasn’t a surprising discovery, but only a confirmation of what we already know for our common-sense.

Performing a creative activity (writing, painting, play music and so on) at the place of sleeping hours can be easier for an artist or, simply, a very creative person, pushed by a great imagination and fantasy and by sudden “flashes” when they have an idea. The problem is that the price to pay is unavoidable, sooner or later.

Some tests performed in New Zealand on 10-12 years old children show just this: those with the highest scores on creativity tests were more than twice more at risk of insomnia. Their fantasy works, works excites the organism, but it doesn’t allow them to rest and sleep. This is dangerous for health, sooner or later, because the consequent state of mental tiredness and exhaustion makes more and more difficult whatever mental activity, creative or not.

Insomnia can be generally due to the many unquiet thoughts (negative or positive) that crowd the mind and keep a person in a constant state of worry and agitation for what causes anxiety, fear and, regarding a creative person, what is still unfinished or is still unresolved or for many ideas among which a choice is necessary. These thoughts can produce some good results but, in the long run, this sleepless creativity by night without sleeping hours during the day transforms the creative thoughts in a sort of delirium, with possible paranoia and other mental and nervous diseases. Moreover, one tends to neglect


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Does insomnia help or hinder creativity?

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