[HN Gopher] Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not crea...
___________________________________________________________________
Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study
indicates
Author : rajnathani
Score : 294 points
Date : 2020-03-06 13:42 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.uark.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.uark.edu)
| UtMan88 wrote:
| At Game Jams I would always start things off with my "2 beers, 2
| coffees" method. After the theme was announced, we'd go out and
| discuss ideas over a few beers (just not enough to get trashed),
| then, come back, flesh stuff out, get our coffee and go back to
| work. Worked out pretty well for generating some pretty wild
| ideas while not making ourselves disfunctional.
|
| Drink responsibly.
| [deleted]
| ihuman wrote:
| > not enough to get trashed
|
| But enough to reach the Ballmer Peak? https://xkcd.com/323/
| snarf21 wrote:
| Yeah, just enough to slow your brain down and you slide right
| into flow.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Wouldn't the Ballmer Peak be pretty trashed? I don't really
| know how well BAC% correlates to drunkenness but that's
| almost double the legal limit for driving in the US.
| nscalf wrote:
| Write drunk, edit buzzed, then?
| leesec wrote:
| Code drunk, commit sober.
| mariodiana wrote:
| I remember reading writing advice somewhere (prose, not
| code) that suggested you have an alcoholic beverage in the
| evening for your rough drafts, and then coffee in the
| morning for your editing. The strategy was: loosen up and
| then tighten up.
| vsareto wrote:
| Beer code tends to forget about edge cases in my experience,
| so yeah
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yeah, a former colleague of mine told me they used to
| regularly drink a pint of beer with an evening of coding,
| until on one occasion they introduced a subtle bug which
| took them two days to hunt down.
|
| They were working in C, which makes it a lot easier to
| introduce subtle bugs than most languages, but I certainly
| think twice about coding while under the influence since I
| heard that story!
| clarry wrote:
| Are we to infer that your colleague hardly ever made
| subtle bugs?
|
| I can make plenty of those.. and I've never had beer.
| beobab wrote:
| I never remember to put comments in when I am beer-coding.
|
| Caffeine-code is much easier to follow later.
| kingpiss wrote:
| My weed code is usually really creative but riddled with
| bugs
| petra wrote:
| Does it help with solving hard problems ?
| mywittyname wrote:
| When you come back sober, the solutions won't make any
| sense.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Personally, weed might help in the creative phase of
| problem solving, but if it requires working memory weed
| is a big negative(at least how it affects me)
| nkingsy wrote:
| I find it's great for diving into refactoring projects
| that I've been putting off. I like to do that stoned
| because it's usually not that hard, just tedious moving
| files around and organizing things. Same way my wife
| reorganizes the furniture when she gets stoned.
|
| I also sometimes find solutions to hard problems in my
| head when stoned, though I usually just write down the
| solution rather than coding it, as large-scale
| implementations are better done sober.
| [deleted]
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Weirdly enough, being tired boosts creativity for me
| dartdartdart wrote:
| What other common ways are there to improve problem solving or
| creativity?
| dontparticipate wrote:
| Marijuana
| fourmyle wrote:
| Maybe creativity but at least for me definitely not problem
| solving. Modafinil on the other hand...
| flycaliguy wrote:
| As a graphic designer my advice for people looking to convert a
| stimulant into divergent thinking fuel is building yourself a
| framework for developing creative ideas. Not exactly rocket
| science, but I do see where this article is coming from.
|
| Lots of thumbnail drawings and constructive criticism from a
| teammate is the meat of it.
|
| Also... be naturally good at divergent thinking I guess? I love
| working with people who are naturally divergent. They tell the
| funniest jokes.
| failrate wrote:
| Sure, and if you find yourself getting stage fright, you can
| use something like Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies.
| Cenk wrote:
| The paper in question:
| https://citationsy.com/archives/q?doi=10.1016/j.concog.2020....
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| It's a pretty poor study, to be honest. The pattern I tend to
| see on Hacker News with studies is that they go unread beyond
| the abstract (often not even that when a press release is
| linked, like here) and people just chime in with their
| anecdotes that confirm their own personal beliefs.
| MperorM wrote:
| At least they read the abstract!
|
| I can't really determine what the right cost/benefit trade-
| off here. Reading beyond the abstract is rather time
| consuming and is not something I can afford for every paper.
| simonsarris wrote:
| Ha, if true that would confirm Balzac's claim:
|
| > Coffee is a great power in my life; I have observed its effects
| on an epic scale. Coffee roasts your insides. Many people claim
| coffee inspires them, _but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes
| boring people even more boring._
|
| From "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee, 1830,
| http://blissbat.net/balzac.html
| arduinomancer wrote:
| "The 200mg enhanced problem solving significantly, but had no
| effect on creative thinking," said Zabelina. "It also didn't
| make it worse, so keep drinking your coffee; it won't interfere
| with these abilities."
|
| So not really I guess
| empath75 wrote:
| pretty much true for any stimulant in my experience.
| kgonza wrote:
| Not...
|
| Ah, in your experience. I missed that, initially.
|
| I meant to write "Not khat," which gives me the best
| inspiration ever (and a crash that lasts days when I get off
| of it).
| empath75 wrote:
| But you wouldn't know if you were boring to other people
| would you?
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| What part of the world are you in where khat is a thing?
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| Presumably middle east or north/eastern africa.
|
| Then again I'm sure there are plenty of SV hipster types
| who might be big on it. "forget microdosing, khat is the
| new path to rockstar programming flow states"
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| Is anyone afraid that microdosing might become the next
| must, if you want to be competitive in the programming
| fields of industry?
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| Microdosing is mostly hype. I know many people who've
| tried microdosing. Does it give you a 5% edge? Maybe...
| but sometimes it distracts and subtracts 5%.
|
| It is not NZT from the movie Limitless, despite media
| hype.
|
| As a productivity drug, amphetamines far outclass
| psychedelics.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| No, because any benefits it might have are not big enough
| to be dealbreakers.
|
| Programming, unlike sport, isn't about one winner taking
| all. At least not on the level of individual programming
| skill.
| rmdashrfstar wrote:
| No, I think it's a bit ridiculous to assume that everyone
| would be microdosing or that it provides such a massive
| competitive edge such that the drawbacks of microdosing
| are outweighed.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| I bet people are just a little more weird microdosing
| psychedelics. Like, come on if it impacts your ability to
| create novel things, then you are going to create novel
| conversation topics and some of those are going to be
| fucking weird. I love acid for personal development but I
| am not sure if I could handle this reality.
| pampa wrote:
| What are the drawbacks? Nobody seems to talk about
| drawbacks.
| tmoot wrote:
| I'm happy you posted this.
| pizza wrote:
| Balzac famously (apocryphally, perhaps?) known for drinking 50
| cups of coffee a day!
|
| This part resonated with me:
|
| > _When you have reached the point of consuming this kind of
| coffee, then become exhausted and decide that you really must
| have more, even though you make it of the finest ingredients
| and take it perfectly fresh, you will fall into horrible
| sweats, suffer feebleness of the nerves, and undergo episodes
| of severe drowsiness._
|
| I definitely get extremely drowsy any time after 5 pm when I
| have gotten into the habit of drinking plenty of coffee per day
| TACIXAT wrote:
| I wonder how they establish a control group. Most people
| regularly consume caffeine, so this is most likely measuring the
| effects of caffeine withdrawal, since the control isn't
| necessarily people who never consume caffeine. I guess you could
| test on Mormons for this.
| RandomInteger4 wrote:
| In other news: "Water is Wet"
| tombert wrote:
| What exactly is the point of these kinds of smartass comments?
| Even if it were within the realm of common knowledge (which I
| find debatable), having a study to confirm it could still have
| value.
|
| I personally didn't know that caffeine might be a problem for
| creativity, so I found the article interesting.
| nwsm wrote:
| Interesting study. I wonder what "enhanced problem solving
| significantly" means?
|
| Also first time seeing my alma mater on HN :)
| tus88 wrote:
| Why would it? It would be like saying caffeine boosts your
| personality or social skills.
| _pastel wrote:
| Ah, the classic confusion between not finding enough evidence to
| disprove the null hypothesis, and finding enough evidence to
| prove the null hypothesis.
|
| The caffeinated group outperformed the noncaffeinated on all 5
| creativity metrics. The sample size and effect size were too
| small to prove caffeine caused an improvement.
|
| How did that turn into this title?
| olooney wrote:
| Right. These results could equally well be interpreted as
| caffeine have the same effect on both convergent and divergent
| thinking, but divergent thinking (renamed "creativity" in the
| title) is harder to measure because it has more variance. If
| anything, it provides mild evidence _in favor_ of the
| hypothesis that caffeine improves divergent thinking and calls
| for further study with a larger control group.
| SeanFerree wrote:
| Interesting. I've never had a problem with this or noticed it. I
| couldn't ever give up coffee though :)))
| aganame wrote:
| Someone oughta research the differences between coffee and other
| caffeinated drinks. My experience says that there are huge
| differences there.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| It's the different caffeine dose plus all the other chemicals.
| L-theanine in green tea, for example. I think I've seen some
| research on the difference between green tea and coffee
| somewhere.
| aganame wrote:
| Sure, but the effects of coffee against the digestive system
| are entirely different from tea. That supposedly has some
| psychological effects.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Oh good point.
| rafaelvasco wrote:
| Of course. Creativity is not a matter of more brain activity,
| more synapses etc. It comes from elsewhere. One could say we have
| two brains, the one that is active while we're awake and the one
| which activates when we sleep and dream. It is known that some
| painters deliberately entered in a dream like consciousness
| state, and from there they took the creativity and inspiration to
| paint out of the box things;
| csours wrote:
| This is why I drink Irish coffee when I want to solve problems
| creatively.
| dacohenii wrote:
| Thank you for linking to the paper.
|
| The study measures the effects of regular caffeine users:
|
| > Participants were invited to participate if they were between
| 18-35 years of age, consumed between 1-2 cups of caffeinated
| beverages per day at least 5 days a week, did not smoke, were
| native English speakers, and took no psychiatric medications or
| painkillers on a regular basis. > [...] > Participants were asked
| to abstain from any caffeinated or alcoholic beverages from 4 pm
| on the day prior to the session.
|
| I recently listened to Michael Pollan's _Caffeine_ [0], which was
| on Audible 's free monthly audiobook list recently. He argues
| (and I'm inclined to agree) that if you are a daily caffeine
| consumer, your daily cup of coffee does less in the way of
| cognitive enhancement, and more in the way of getting you back to
| your baseline (i.e. preventing caffeine withdrawal).
|
| With this in mind, I think the study could be improved by having
| subjects who started off completely off caffeine for a few weeks.
| That way, we'd be more certain that the control group isn't going
| through caffeine withdrawal, and that the effect of caffeine
| isn't decreased by tolerance.
|
| [0] https://www.audible.com/pd/Caffeine-Audiobook/B083MVZ91Y [1]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22503948
| salt-licker wrote:
| Yep, I almost never drink coffee more than 3 days in a row
| because it loses its affect. Luckily, intolerance comes back
| after only a day or two off.
| sova wrote:
| Unexpected use of the word intolerance, "caffeine sensitivity
| returns" -- in this case "intolerance" and "sensitivity" are
| synonyms, how interesting!
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I'll risk being downvoted for nitpicking in an attempt to be
| helpful about "affect" vs "effect":
|
| Did it affect you? Yes, it had an effect.
|
| The psych study showed the meds were effective in improving
| patents' affect (mood).
|
| I want to effect (bring about) change by doing X.
|
| HTH!
| codyb wrote:
| It really is a pain in the butt since both effect and
| affect have noun and verb forms. What a language.
| petargyurov wrote:
| I was under the impression that on average the brain/body
| needs around 9 days of no caffeine consumption to get back to
| its natural baseline. I can't seem to find the source of that
| study right now...
| fultonfaknem42 wrote:
| You could do the math if you look up the half-life of
| caffeine. Via a quick Google search it looks like it is 4-6
| hours. So if I understand it correctly, it's 4-6 hours for
| 100mg to become 50mg, then another 4-6 for 50mg to become
| 25mg, etc. So like if all you did was have a single cup of
| 100mg coffee, then its like 12-18 hours for it to go away.
| If you're me though, you drink like 3-4 a day. This seems
| to be about 28 to 42 hours. Withdrawals could take up to 2
| weeks in my experience, and are proportional to how heavy
| my intake was.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| You'd have to look at things like the rate of
| downregulation of the appropriate brain components that
| caffeine affects.
| samatman wrote:
| That tells you how long before it's out of your system,
| not how long it takes to reset after.
|
| Effect duration for a psychoactive is related to half-
| life, but they aren't identical, and 'reset time' varies
| widely, e.g. MDMA is over in about 4 hours but it takes
| at minimum of two weeks before one can get a comparable
| effect again.
| mindslight wrote:
| I'm in touch with the dose because I tend to nibble pills. It's
| weird to me how often people consume caffeine uncritically,
| skipping days, having arbitrary massive doses, etc. I'm clean
| right now, but if I were going to start up again, 66-100mg
| would be all I needed to be flying. The 200mg in the study is
| odd to me, because that kind of dose only makes sense for
| someone who is already chemically dependent.
|
| Cold turkey is the only effective way I've found to lower my
| dose. My personal caffeine withdrawal timeline is about 4-5
| weeks (starting from say 400-500mg/day). The first few days are
| bad, the next few days are better. The second week is terrible.
| The third week is worse. Then it slowly gets better.
| vidarh wrote:
| I think the issue is how you'd find enough people
| sufficiently "clean" that 66mg-100mg would be a big dose.
| Most people don't keep track of their caffeine ingestion at
| all, but downs big cups of coffee at uncontrolled intervals.
|
| For my part withdrawal from going cold turkey is absolute
| hell _unless I 'm travelling_ or otherwise majorly changing
| my routine. Like with many other drugs, despite the severe
| physical effects, caffeine withdrawal is very dependent on
| mental state as well. I always tends to minimize or totally
| stop my caffeine intake when I go on holiday or visit family
| etc, and I don't notice any of the normal withdrawal effects.
|
| If I for whatever reason want to "reset" outside of travel,
| I'll try to step down, and pre-emptively take a
| paracetamol/acetaminophen early evening because I tend to
| start getting shakes in the evening if I reduce my caffeine
| intake too quickly. Cold turkey is too brutal for me.
|
| People don't seem to realise just how much caffeine can
| affect them. It can be incredibly useful, but like you I find
| it weird that people consume it ad hoc without carefully
| managing the doses. I suspect a lot of people spend a lot of
| time miserable without realising why because of it.
| olejorgenb wrote:
| Yeah, seems like a major flaw to tbh.
|
| > Typically, the onset of symptoms starts 12 to 24 hours after
| caffeine cessation, peaks at 20-51 hours, and may last up to
| two to nine days.
|
| > The severity of symptoms vary from individual to individual,
| and most commonly include a headache, fatigue, decreased
| energy/activeness, decreased alertness, drowsiness, decreased
| contentedness, depressed mood, _difficulty concentrating_ ,
| irritability, and feeling foggy/not clearheaded
|
| > The incidence or severity of symptoms increased with
| increases in the daily dose, but abstinence from low doses,
| such as about one small cup of coffee per day, also produced
| symptoms of withdrawal.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430790/
| iancmceachern wrote:
| His audio book is great, also his recent interview on NPRs
| fresh air was great!
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I personally cycle my caffeine usage, with intentionally low
| dose weeks between higher dose weeks.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Of course this is anecdotal and should be taken as such. But I
| can completely get on board with Pollan's assertion. If I stop
| caffeine consumption for a few weeks. The day I go back on,
| even a single coffee puts me into a "oh wow where have you been
| all my life?!" energized mood of getting stuff done.
| jrs95 wrote:
| This would be a big improvement to the study. As part of
| preparation for the WoW Classic launch I and the rest of my
| leveling group quit caffeine for 2 weeks to help reset our
| tolerance. In order to play as effectively as possible we
| delayed using caffeine for as long we possible in our sessions
| so we could play longer. Being used to consuming caffeine on a
| daily basis it was amazing to see the difference in its
| effectiveness using that method.
| Antoninus wrote:
| I agree.
| pandigital wrote:
| Erdos[0] certainly felt his creativity was helped by caffeine
| (and amphetamines). From personal experience, math professors
| seem to be the most reliable academic users of nicotine and
| caffeine. I'm skeptical they are all deluding themselves.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s
| rhombocombus wrote:
| So do the ADHD meds I take; huge gains in problem solving and
| execution, not so much in the creativity front. I wonder if this
| is a general psychological feature of stimulants
| ff317 wrote:
| I tend to agree that's a reasonable broad conclusion.
|
| However, even among stimulants, there are chemical differences
| between them, and they might act differently in the body. Also,
| coffee does contain a lot of other chemicals alongside the
| caffeine. Biology is never simple!
|
| However, you can, in my experience, enhance the
| creative/lateral-thinking benefits of sleep cycles by adding
| carefully-timed/dosed caffeine as a stimulant. The basic kinds
| of patterns I've found to work well go something like: Bang
| your head on a hard problem to at least partial mental
| exhaustion, then consume coffee and go take a short nap. The
| stimulant buzz will slow down the process of falling asleep
| from exhaustion, and that slowed-down timeline gives you more
| minutes in that halfway-asleep state with your mind abuzz in
| lateral creative connections mode. Then you eventually make it
| into sleep and wake up later refreshed with new ideas.
| JackRabbitSlim wrote:
| I still remember one of the funniest lines from the old movie
| "Dead Man On Campus":
|
| "This is my brothers Ritalin, It's great for staying up and
| studying just don't try to write an English paper on it"
| overcast wrote:
| Bob MaloogaLoogaLoogaLoogaLooga. One Malooga, four loogas.
| s_y_n_t_a_x wrote:
| Fortunately, delirium sets in during an all-nighter and you
| can get creativity from that.
|
| Not that you should strive for that scenario though.
| [deleted]
| k__ wrote:
| What boosts creativity?
|
| I sometimes used alcohol for song writing purposes. Are there
| healthier methods?
| cinnamonheart wrote:
| Cannabis, although I find it's easy to accidentally dive deep
| on something I didn't mean to on it -- I find combining it with
| coffee prevents me from getting too focused on one thing. YMMV.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I'm no artist, but I've always felt creativity comes from
| dysfunction/chaos.
|
| My wife (a psychologist) and I discuss this regularly around
| poetry, music, painting, etc. Some of the most "beautiful"
| works come from unhealthy emotional states. And that a lot of
| the sameness we get today in popular culture arises when art is
| cultivated by large organizations which are inherently are
| devoid of emotion, and are pushing populism instead of beauty.
|
| You can see it very easily today in popular music. If you look
| back to the 1990s and the rise of alternative music, hundreds
| of one-hit-wonders, 8 different "Natalie"s, etc. And today
| where one-hit-wonders don't really exist anymore because Clear
| Channel has cultivated a sound and artists that don't conform
| that sound are not going to get airplay, and not have a run-
| away one-hit-wonder and fade back into obscurity and cult-
| fandom.
| drenvuk wrote:
| Yeah that's for most divergent thinking. In the art realm
| here's an example of Penny Arcade's Tycho talking about anti
| depressants and the usual lack of creativity that comes with
| them. https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/01/09/bedeviled
|
| Linkin Park's Bennington Talked numerous times about how his
| drug addictions helped him creatively despite him wanting to
| be sober. His later more sober songs kinds suck tbh.
|
| The thoughts that come from drug tweaked brains are always
| slightly off. Sometimes though not usually, the thoughts are
| unique in a novel and attractive way. For creative thinking,
| dosing on something may be effective but I doubt it's
| healthy.
| claudeganon wrote:
| We have to be careful about romanticizing mental illness
| though. As a professional illustrator, I've seen more
| people spiral out of the field from mental illness than
| succeed because of some visionary ability that illness
| provided them.
|
| There are of course brilliant artists who are nuts, many of
| whose work I admire. But most high-performing people I know
| seem to be pretty "normal" and disciplined.
| [deleted]
| zackmorris wrote:
| I tend to agree, for me the music died sometime around 2000
| with the post-90s hangover of facing "reality" with 9/11 and
| consolidation of radio station ownership. In my city, we
| simply don't have any real radio stations. The only play top
| 40 and a pittance of alternative music, mostly from over 20
| years ago.
|
| Meanwhile, my Discover Weekly in Spotify and the channels
| spun from those artists have many thousands of songs that are
| considerably better than anything on the radio, but will
| never get airtime.
|
| Here's a good example of what a real radio station would
| sound like today if we still had DJs and the freedom to play
| anything:
|
| https://radioparadise.com/player
|
| I asked Bill (the owner) 13 years ago about opening a station
| in my town to simply play his stream on FM but he broke the
| news to me that it's not really possible. It would cost
| something like $100,000 dollars (probably $250,000 today)
| just to get the license.
|
| I also got the feeling that it would be so expensive to
| operate (in electricity alone) that stations are no longer
| viable as self-sustaining entities. They make their money by
| cross-promotion of other stations and businesses under an
| umbrella corporation.
|
| The only way to break up this stagnation is antitrust
| enforcement IMHO. Bring back the Broadcast Station Cross-
| Ownership Rule at the very least, then go further to also
| break up the big media duopolies like CNN/Fox News (which of
| course will not happen in these times):
|
| https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/fccs-review-
| broadcast-o...
|
| _In 2017, the Commission eliminated PDF Download its rule
| that had previously prohibited common ownership of a full-
| power broadcast station and a daily newspaper if the station
| 's contour (defined separately by type of station) completely
| encompassed the newspaper's city of publication and the
| station and newspaper were in the same relevant Nielsen
| market. At the same time, the Commission also eliminated the
| radio-television cross-ownership rule, which had restricted
| the common ownership of broadcast radio and television
| stations located in the same market. These two rules -- the
| newspaper-broadcast cross ownership and radio-television
| cross ownership rules -- were eliminated due in part to the
| growth in the number and variety of sources of entertainment,
| news and information in the modern media marketplace._
| adrianmonk wrote:
| A long time ago in a gifted kid program, I was taught a method
| which I like. Just now I learned it's apparently just
| brainstorming, but specifically the original Osborn method
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming#Osborn's_method).
|
| The gist (as I was taught it) is that when generating ideas,
| you separate things into two phases.
|
| In the first phase, you focus solely on coming up with a lot of
| ideas. And here's _the_ key part: during this phase, you avoid
| all judgment, evaluation, and negative thinking (maybe even
| excessive positive thinking) about ideas. If you 're trying to
| generate ideas that solve a problem, for example, you don't
| worry about whether it will work. Just write it down.
|
| In the second phase, you then go through and evaluate which
| ideas are good and bad. Many of them won't make sense, and of
| course you toss those out, but it's good that they're on the
| list because it confirms you did it right.
|
| I think doing it this way this gains you two things. One, in
| the first phase, you stay focused on idea generation. Every
| moment your brain is occupied in evaluating merits is a moment
| your brain is not working on creating ideas. It's very easy to
| get sidetracked exploring an idea in depth. Avoiding evaluation
| helps ensure you actually allocate time to idea generation.
|
| Two, it helps emotionally. Judgment, even if done
| constructively and in good faith, tends to kill the moment/mood
| (which is relatively fragile), whether it is self-judgment or
| from others. Coming up with ideas feels good and you get a
| little emotional reward as you create them. But negative
| thoughts or responses tend to make you want to hold back. Last
| time you offered (to yourself or someone else) an idea, it was
| partly a negative experience, so why repeat that?
|
| You can do the two-phase thing individually in your own head or
| in groups.
|
| Practically speaking, this isn't necessarily easy to do in
| groups. Many people already have preconceived notions about how
| brainstorming or idea generation is supposed to work, and it's
| hard to get them to try a new way or understand the difference
| between this and how they normally do it. Also, some people
| have trouble sticking to it. Sometimes because of impatience or
| wanting to look smart, but also because evaluating later can
| give you a feeling that you'll forget an important thought if
| you don't express it now.
| kache_ wrote:
| Psychedelics
| matwood wrote:
| > What boosts creativity?
|
| For me, anything that makes me a little tired so my thoughts
| wander. Sitting down after a hard workout for example. Another
| is that time at the end of the day where I worked hard so I'm a
| bit tired, but I'm not so tired that it's time to sleep yet. I
| also have to allow it to happen. Sitting down in front of the
| PS4 or on my phone is not going to let my mind wander.
| anthony_romeo wrote:
| Warning: Tangential, rambling thoughts ahead
|
| I recall from someone in the field in art therapy who discussed
| with me the difference between being artistic and being
| creative. Being an artist implies the pursuit of technical
| mastery of a certain craft, whereas being creative is the
| ability to create novel ideas through various means. These
| certainly aren't mutually exclusive properties, as many of the
| legendary artists of the past are those who excelled in both.
|
| Though it can feel discouraging to perceive that one lacks a
| natural affinity for either of these qualities (I tend to fall
| more into the creative side of things rather than artistic),
| this also gives rise to the long list of successful
| artistic/creative duos. For example, duos are pretty common in
| the webcomic community (Penny Arcade being the most obvious
| example).
|
| It's good to strive to improve oneself, but should the right
| opportunity arise, working together with other people who can
| make up for those (perceived) shortcomings has at least as much
| potential as being a solo artist/creative. And being involved
| with a community can provide new insights which can lead to
| personal growth in creativity and mastery.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| And yet, the Greek root word we derive the word "technique"
| from encompasses both skill and creativity! See
| https://www.etymonline.com/word/technique
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I completely agree with your distinction, but I'd subdivide
| things on another level too. Being artistic is about craft,
| but it's also about expression.
|
| There is something floating around in your mind that you want
| others to experience. It might be an emotion or thought or
| aesthetic experience that you had and want others to share.
| It can even be "asymmetrical" in the sense that perhaps you
| yourself haven't had the experience but it's one you want
| someone else to have.
|
| Craft is all about the "how" of art, and expression is about
| the "what" and the "why". Expression can be a way of
| connecting with people because what you feel or think becomes
| something they feel or think too.
|
| If you have art that is all craft and no expression, it can
| be a little empty or dull. For example, a pianist who plays
| all the right notes but doesn't put any feeling into it. Art
| with all expression and no craft isn't always great either.
| If a painter wants to capture the beauty of a person's face
| but can't draw noses, the effect probably won't be beauty.
| barrenko wrote:
| Zen anon here. First step is just recognizing you can't force
| it and have to let it come to you, OR be ok with it not coming.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Boredom and midnight oil.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Poverty. My most recent creative streak was when I had to
| survive a month on 250CHF in Zurich.
| flyGuyOnTheSly wrote:
| I always do my best programming when I am dead broke and the
| wolves are at the door.
| Proziam wrote:
| Pressure of any kind is my best motivator as well. A
| serious deadline to hit with significant consequences (the
| consequences don't even have to be mine necessarily) often
| gets the best work out of me.
| s3nnyy wrote:
| Zurich person here. Tell me about it.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I've read a few of your articles before I came here - good
| stuff.
|
| BTW any interesting tech talks, meetups etc. you can
| recommend?
| s3nnyy wrote:
| thx! everything on meetup.com email me and i can maybe
| give you a list. (email in HN profile)
| k__ wrote:
| Hm, I mostly stagnated depressively in front of the TV when I
| was poor.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Perhaps you were unemployed as well. I had (have, actually)
| a job, but due to absolutely hilarious (in hindsight of
| course) circumstances had to spend most of my money on a
| room I got via AirBnB.
|
| I even started a technical blog:
|
| https://wringing.it/
|
| But I may not be poor enough anymore to continue writing
| it.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| People get really creative when they have constraints placed
| on them, in general. Poverty is a pretty strong constraint on
| a lot of things.
| earthtourist wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkA9rz-1YoA
| cvaidya1986 wrote:
| Hot chocolate.
| pgt wrote:
| Small doses of psilocybin seems to work wonders.
| ipnon wrote:
| Is there any scientific evidence? It could be that
| microdosers are subconsciously thinking, "I want to be more
| creative today," when they decide to do the drugs. Any
| creativity after that point would be a bit of a self-
| fulfilling prophecy.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| Some writer and artists would use the following:
|
| Hold a key in one of your hands and hang your hand down by your
| side while you let yourself fall asleep while sitting in a
| chair (honestly this first part sounds the most difficult).
|
| When you fall asleep--or rather the trance-like borderlands
| between awake and sleep-- you should naturally drop the key (or
| whatever metallic, noise-making object) which should spring you
| back awake retaining some of that state you just fell into, or
| any insights sprung into mind during that state.
|
| I'm sure everyone's had mornings where they woke up after
| dreaming but without feeling quite awake--it's related to that
| feeling that they'd chase.
|
| Maybe someone has a link on hand to a better write-up about it.
| I don't.
| jordan314 wrote:
| Didn't Benjamin Franklin sleep at his desk with a stick
| propped under his elbow, so when the stick fell out he would
| invent stuff? I remember hearing that somewhere but now I
| can't find it
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Maybe Franklin did this with the key and it gave him the
| lightning rod idea
| dana321 wrote:
| Or just move next door to some noisy neighbors that randomly
| wake you up with bangs.
| petargyurov wrote:
| I would be willing to try this if it didn't take me 20
| minutes to fall asleep, probably even longer if I had to do
| it on a chair in the middle of the day.
| factsaresacred wrote:
| An afternoon nap is the number one 'trick' for me. You get to
| experience that well-rested clarity twice in the one day.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| For me, caffeine is "focus juice". Makes it possible to care
| about solving tedious work problems. I can see how the same would
| apply to writers and artists, who have tons of creative ideas but
| have a harder time battling through the "war of art" without a
| little help from our friend Coffea arabica.
|
| Creativity tends to flow best standing in the shower, lying in
| bed, or out for a run or a bike ride.
| tic_tac wrote:
| Creativity can really only happen when the mind isn't doing
| anything in particular. Only then can it wander, and only in
| wandering can it arrive at novel combinations or alterations of
| ideas.
| angel_j wrote:
| Why can't problem-solving be a part of creativity?
| vraivroo wrote:
| Did you read the article? Convergent vs divergent thinking.
| DantesKite wrote:
| On a side note, I really enjoy the taste of coffee. I try not to
| drink more than one cup a day, but I wonder now about what would
| happen if I stopped cold turkey.
|
| Maybe a couple days reset wouldn't be such a bad thing.
| panchicore3 wrote:
| I usually take coffee tolerance breaks, 3 days withdrawal
| symptoms like headache and 20 days coffee-free, when I come
| back, it hits better than if I were stayed so it is rewarding.
| ssully wrote:
| I drink a cup of coffee in the morning, maybe have a green tea
| in the afternoon. I've gone off caffeine and the only negative
| impact is I just take a little longer to wake up. I am sure
| everyone's tolerance is different, but I think I would need to
| start drinking more coffee to feel any kind of withdrawal
| affects.
| anthony_romeo wrote:
| I find weaning off with following a gradual path of half-caf ->
| decaf* or black tea -> herbal tea helps greatly with withdrawal
| symptoms. Then staying off caffeine for a few weeks really
| brings the rush back when I inevitably resume drinking coffee
|
| *I should point out that decaf still has a little caffeine in
| it
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I guess I never assumed it did. For me, the experience of
| caffeine is more or less that it just wakes up my brain. Whatever
| type of thinking I was already capable of or inclined toward when
| my brain is engaged, it just enables me to actually do it.
|
| It is nice to have a more scientific basis to back that up,
| though.
| [deleted]
| WC3w6pXxgGd wrote:
| I can tell you this from personal experience. I can do activities
| with which I'm already familiar quicker, but I am far less
| creative due to the caffeine anxiety.
| maxhedrome wrote:
| That's what the weed is for
| burtonator wrote:
| Duh. Marijuana AND caffeine!
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| Looking at Table 3, it seems like there is a consistent
| improvement in divergent problem solving, but it's well within
| the standard deviation for each row. So it may actually help with
| that and we just need many more data points.
|
| The other thing is, for me caffeine results in more ideas
| bubbling out of my subconscious. This can be great for
| brainstorming-type creativity or getting unstuck while working on
| a creative project - but it's like operations research where
| you're solving the problem by adding another variable. It's not
| useful for more specific, constrained problems like the
| "divergent" tasks in the paper.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10538...
| ecoled_ame wrote:
| you gotta smoke a joint with your coffee before work too
| rhombocombus wrote:
| In college we called that the "hippie speedball"
| threauxawei wrote:
| We would take adderall to work and study, and then smoke weed
| at 3am to go to sleep. Very fun but not very effective (for
| academic success)
| ecoled_ame wrote:
| lol
| durpleDrank wrote:
| Carbs > Caffeine
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Excerpts from Balzac's 1839 essay 'Traite des Excitants
| Modernes'('Treatise on Modern Stimulants')":
| https://www.bookofjoe.com/2020/01/experts-expert-honor%C3%A9...
| flyGuyOnTheSly wrote:
| I would have thought that problem solving abilities necessitated
| creativity?
|
| If the solution was obvious, where's the problem?
| noobly wrote:
| >In the paper, Zabelina differentiates "convergent" from
| "divergent" thinking. The former is defined as seeking a
| specific solution to a problem, for example, the "correct"
| answer. The latter is characterized by idea generation where a
| large set of apt, novel or interesting responses would be
| suitable. Caffeine was shown to improve convergent thinking in
| the study, while consuming it had no significant impact on
| divergent thinking.
|
| Yeah, this was a bit was odd. IMO, problem solving begins with
| 'divergent' thinking and only later converges toward a, or the,
| solution. A study like this hinges upon how variables
| like'divergent thinking' were quantified, and there were no
| examples given of how they tested for either style of thinking
| here.
| throwsprtsdy wrote:
| Anecdotally, I was recently cramming a lot of "Leetcode medium"
| questions to prepare for job interviews, and after a couple of
| weeks, I was drinking Starbuck's coffee and solving those
| problems like a machine... seriously, _like a machine_.
|
| I found I did get better (or at least much faster) at
| recognizing subproblems and quickly composing an overall
| solution, even if none of the steps was particularly creative.
|
| After about 3 weeks I had to ditch the coffee, I was getting
| too addled.
|
| (Not a controlled experiment, of course, just conveying my
| impression of the experience).
| Proziam wrote:
| Another anecdote, but when prepping for any sort of
| competition I used to be a hard-core caffeine consumer
| (measurable in grams, instead of mg) and it sometimes led to
| some weird effects.
|
| After a day or two of that level of caffeine intake, I go
| into an almost trance of productivity and performance. It
| feels like I'm watching myself do what I need to do, not that
| I have to 'do it' myself. It's a very strange sensation. It's
| the same sensation I get when I'm 'in the zone' and competing
| in something with 100% of my focus on it (emotionally
| engaged, you might say).
|
| I don't get into that state anywhere close to as easy without
| caffeine. I've been off caffeine for about 4-5 months now and
| I've noticed a change. My productivity isn't _worse_ in any
| measurable way, but it _feels_ different. I wish I could
| describe it in more relatable terms but I have nothing I can
| really relate it to.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| How do you not end up spending all your time on the toilet
| when consuming that much caffeine?
| Proziam wrote:
| If I drink coffee I definitely notice a need to clear the
| bowels more often (probably twice a day). Energy drinks
| and caffeine tablets don't have that effect on me, so
| once a day works fine.
|
| The only negative thing is that I often work until right
| before I need to sleep, so if I'm drinking something
| mindlessly while working I end up waking up in the night
| once.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| I know exactly what you mean. My theory is that getting
| amped up on caffeine keeps you from getting decent sleep,
| which means your cortisol/whatever hormones are still kinda
| high when you wake up, so when you take even more caffeine
| upon awakening, your body seems to move forwards from a
| different baseline than when you drink coffee after
| completely resting. This along with the fact that for me
| personally, being tired makes me more focused in a very one
| dimensional way, i can be very immersed in what im doing
| without ever really questioning if what im doing is even
| worth doing in the first place.
| Proziam wrote:
| I think there's a kind of 'loading' period where your
| body absorbs caffeine and normalizes into a caffeinated
| state. I don't know if the sleep cycle has much to do
| with it though. In my case, I sleep _much_ better after I
| have caffeine. I 've been sleeping poorly for several
| months now because of my decision to cut it out.
|
| I might be abnormal (people I live and work with
| certainly think so!), but I basically never feel 'tired.'
| I go from feeling 100% to "I need to sleep." This has
| remained true even after I cut out caffeine, so I can't
| really relate to how you describe working while tired.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| No kidding huh, sleep better after grams of caffeine?
| Yea, i guess my experience wouldn't apply to you.
| Proziam wrote:
| Definitely not a healthy habit, but I used to take an
| energy drink to bed at night because without the caffeine
| it would take forever to fall asleep. I'd believed it was
| an addiction, except now I have been 'clean' of caffeine
| for so long (without any urges to consume it) and still
| suffer the same difficulty of falling asleep.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| For me there was a optimal caffeine intake for peak leet code
| problem solving, the biggest thing is that coffee makes me
| perform better but if that disturbs my sleep that day, then
| the next day more coffee would make me more wired but much
| slower at problem solving. So peak leetcode for me is good
| sleep and adequate caffeine but not too much that it destroys
| sleep.
| RichardHeart wrote:
| I think focusing your mind is like focusing a magnifying glass,
| you can go broad, or narrow, but not both. How far do you go down
| a path till you switch and try another? I think stimulants
| increase how far you'll remain engaged on one idea. Related:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathfinding
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