Rest is not idleness: How nature can improve creativity by providing wakeful rest for the brain
Written by Gemma Goldenberg for Early Years Educator Volume 23, Issue 809 Feb 2022
What do we mean by creativity and why is it relevant?
Sir Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk ‘Do schools kill creativity?” (2006) asserts that creativity is as important as literacy, and should be treated with the same status. He calls for an educational revolution, whereby creativity is cultivated rather than undermined. It clearly struck a chord with people, the video has been watched over 72 million times.
Whilst we might traditionally think of creativity as being primarily linked to the arts, the concept is actually much broader and more multi-faceted than that:
“I think you can have creativity in any realm from business to politics to technology” Howard Gardener (2012, p46)
There are multiple definitions of creativity, but they commonly include factors such as:
Coming up with ideas - creative ideas are thought to be those that are new, high quality and relevant (Kaufan and Sternberg, 2007)
Exploring possibilities and thinking of multiple solutions (sometimes called divergent thinking)
Synthesising – organising ideas, seeing patterns and making links
These aspects of creativity are relevant to the EYFS, and reflected in the ‘characteristics of effective teaching and learning’ where the descriptors for ‘Creating and thinking critically’ describe how children come up with and develop ideas, make links, and develop problem solving skills.
In a world which is fast changing, whereby the next generation will face a multitude of new challenges: economic, environmental and societal, creativity is increasingly seen as a vital ‘21st century skill’. Over the course of the last 2 decades, thousands of research papers have been published on creativity in an attempt to better understand what it is, and how it can be nurtured.
Importantly for educators, creativity is not a fixed trait but is learnable (Lucas, 2016). That is, all children (and teachers) are able to become more creative.
However, it is only more recently that research has explored whether certain environments are more conducive for the development of creativity, and in particular, whether outdoor natural environments might best support creative thinking.
How is creativity linked to outdoor time in nature?
It has been asserted that ‘The creative process has cognitive, emotive and motivational dimensions, as well as a behavioural basis related to personality traits, all of which shape and are shaped by particular environments.’ (Guerra et al, 2020). Below I explain the way in which both the cognitive and emotional dimensions of creativity may be enhanced by nature.
Cognitive
Much research has already demonstrated that natural settings can support children’s cognition, particularly their memory and attention (Stevenson et al, 2018; Goldenberg 2020). This research is based on Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan, 1995), the idea that our ability to pay attention becomes depleted through over-use, and that whilst urban environments place high demands on attention, natural environments are less attention-grabbing and therefore they can restore directed attention by allowing it to rest and replenish.
Some also believe that being in nature allows for ‘mind wandering’ and that this is an important creative process. Mind wandering, which includes daydreaming, is a state of wakeful rest in which the brain is not intentionally focussed on one thing. Research suggests that this is important for reflective processing and may be critical for healthy development and learning (Yang et al, 2012). Whilst we often strive for children to be focussed and paying attention at all times, it seems that in fact, not paying attention for some of the time is beneficial.
If you have ever been out walking in the forest, or sitting on a beach and have found yourself coming up with a new idea or solution, you may have experienced this process yourself. It is sometimes when we move away from the demands and distractions of our usual working environment, that our minds are freed up to process and solve problems. After all, in environments such as indoor offices, classrooms and urban settings, our brains are hit with around 11 million pieces of information per second! (Plambech et al, 2015).
Emotional
In relation to the emotional dimension of creativity – research shows that being around nature can reduce stress and increase positive mood (Ulrich, 1984), providing favourable emotive conditions for thinking creatively. A metanalysis of 25 years of research on creativity concluded that positive moods produce more creativity than negative or neutral moods (Baas et al, 2008).
But why does nature improve our mood? One theory is that because humans evolved in natural environments, we continue to feel safest in those settings, and therefore our response to nature is initially a physiological one - reduced blood pressure and lower levels of stress hormones, which creates a shift towards a more positive emotional state. According to the Biophilia hypothesis (Kelert & Wilson, 1993) although humans have transitioned from living outdoors in nature to inside buildings and cities, we have maintained our inherent affinity for nature and a need to connect with the natural world. Meeting this need for connectedness to nature brings about emotional wellbeing.
“Creativity begins with an affinity for something. It’s like falling in love.” Howard Gardener
Some studies also suggest that nature contact increases self regulation (Putra et al, 2020) and prosocial behaviour (Weeland et al, 2019), which in turn may support children to work creatively together, exploring solutions and solving problems.
Thus, although there is not much research specifically on nature and creativity, there is increasing evidence to suggest that being in nature supports key states and behaviours such as improved cognition, positive mood and prosocial, self regulated behaviour which might better enable creativity.
Is there any direct evidence on a link between nature and creativity?
There are relatively few studies in this area and those that do exist, tend to have been conducted on adults. One such study (Atchley at al, 2012) found that following 4 days of hiking in nature, people’s performance on a creative reasoning task improved by 50%. The researchers suggest that these large gains in creativity came about for 2 reasons 1) because being outdoors in nature removed people from technology, which places high demands on executive functions and 2) because natural stimuli are emotionally positive and low arousing (non-stressful).
However, there are a number of other factors which could have affected the increase in performance. Perhaps it was the physical exercise, or time spent away from the stresses of work which led people to perform better in the task after hiking. Perhaps participants would have seen equal improvement if they had spent 4 days relaxing at a hotel?
We need to be cautious about how such findings are interpreted. From a headline like ‘Nature contact increases creativity by 50%’ it might be tempting to suddenly move all creative activities outdoors. However, without being able to isolate the specific effect of nature in this study, it’s impossible to know what had the effect on people’s performance.
Qualitative research from Denmark interviewed creative professionals and concluded that nature has the capacity to enhance creativity, particularly in the early stages of the creative process when people are preparing (gathering information and becoming curious) and incubating ideas (when conscious work stops but unconsciously the creative process continues). (Plambech et al, 2015.)
What can educators do?
A qualitative study suggests that creativity in pre-schoolers can be supported through natural outdoor classrooms offering wide ranging play experiences and opportunities to think flexibly (Kiewra and Veselack, 2016). This research found that the key factors enhancing creativity and imagination during outdoor learning were:
Predictable spaces (time spent regularly in familiar outdoor environments)
Ample time for activities (large blocks of time eg 30-90 mins on a single experience)
Open ended materials (loose parts, plants, dirt, sand)
Caring, observant adults who support creative play (avoiding undue influence, allowing children to stretch boundaries, extending children’s thinking).
Indoor classroom environments can often be noisy, busy places with lots of visual and auditory distractions and information to process. Spending time in nature participating in open ended tasks, free play and even ‘down time’ such as sitting quietly or going for a walk may all support brain functioning, wellbeing and creativity.
Nature has multiple benefits for humans; cognitive, emotional and physical. Unpicking these mechanisms is difficult as they often coincide and reinforce one another. More research is needed before we can conclude whether nature contact has a direct impact on children’s creativity. However, it may be pertinent to remember that rest is not idleness, and that wakeful rest for the brain is key for both teachers and children to function optimally and maintain wellbeing. If nature provides a way of providing that rest and recovery, then it is something worth making space for.
References
Atchley, R. A., Strayer, D. L., & Atchley, P. (2012). Creativity in the wild: Improving creative reasoning through immersion in natural settings. PloS one, 7(12), e51474.
Gardner, H. (2012). Commentary: Getting at the heart of the creative experience. Learning Landscapes, 6(1): 45-54.
Goldenberg, G. (2020). Smarter by nature. Early Years Educator, 22(4), 33-35.
Guerra, M., Villa, F. V., & Glăveanu, V. (2020). The teacher's role in the relationship between creativity and outdoor education: a review of the literature. RELAdEI. Revista Latinoamericana de Educación Infantil, 9(2), 131-149.
Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of environmental psychology, 15(3), 169-182.
Kaufman, J.C. and Sternberg, R.J., 2007. Creativity. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 39(4), pp.55-60.
Kiewra, C., & Veselack, E. (2016). Playing with Nature: Supporting Preschoolers' Creativity in Natural Outdoor Classrooms. International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education, 4(1), 70-95.
Kellert, S. R., & Wilson, E. O. (1993). The biophilia hypothesis.
Lucas, B (2016) A Five-Dimensional Model of Creativity and its Assessment in Schools, Applied Measurement in Education, 29:4, 278-290, DOI: 10.1080/08957347.2016.1209206
Plambech, T., & Konijnendijk van den Bosch, C.C. (2015). The impact of nature on creativity – A study among Danish creative professionals. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 14(2), 255- 263.
Putra, I. G. N. E., Astell-Burt, T., Cliff, D. P., Vella, S. A., John, E. E., & Feng, X. (2020). The relationship between green space and prosocial behaviour among children and adolescents: a systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 859.
Stevenson, M. P., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2018). Attention Restoration Theory II: A systematic review to clarify attention processes affected by exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 21(4), 227-268.
Ulrich (1984)
Williams, K. J., Lee, K. E., Hartig, T., Sargent, L. D., Williams, N. S., & Johnson, K. A. (2018). Conceptualising creativity benefits of nature experience: Attention restoration and mind wandering as complementary processes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 59, 36-45.
Weeland, J., Moens, M. A., Beute, F., Assink, M., Staaks, J. P., & Overbeek, G. (2019). A dose of nature: Two three-level meta-analyses of the beneficial effects of exposure to nature on children's self-regulation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 65, 101326.
Yang, M.H, Christodoulou, J, Singh, V Rest Is Not Idleness: Implications of the Brain’s Default Mode for Human Development and Education (2012) Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 352-364
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