Okay look, creativity and mindfulness is something I’ve been forcing myself to get into because my head feels like 47 browser tabs playing music at once and most of them are error 404. It’s January 16 2026 right now, I’m in my crappy apartment somewhere in the US (snow slush everywhere outside, heater making weird clicking noises), coffee’s gone cold again on the desk and I’m just staring at a blank doc like it personally offended me.
Before I started even trying mindfulness stuff my creative “process” was basically doomscroll twitter then hate myself for not magically producing something brilliant. Like seriously embarrassing levels of procrastination. But then I read some actual studies and thought okay maybe there’s something here and not just instagram wellness BS.
Turns out there really is science connecting creativity and mindfulness. The default mode network in your brain—the one that’s active when you’re daydreaming or mind wandering—is huge for coming up with original ideas. Creative people tend to have funky connectivity in that network. There’s this nice overview from Scientific American about how mind-wandering isn’t just distraction, it’s actually fuel for insight if you don’t let it turn into rumination hell.
I tried open monitoring meditation (the kind where you just watch thoughts float by like clouds instead of laser-focusing on your breath) and at first it was torture. My brain immediately went to replaying that time in 10th grade when I tripped in the cafeteria, then jumped to “did I pay the electric bill?”, then “what if AI takes all the writing jobs”. American brain go brrrr, you know? But after like a week of 8-minute sessions (because 10 felt impossible) some weird stuff started happening. Ideas would just… arrive. Not genius level, but better than the nothing I was getting before.
How Mindfulness Messes With Your Brain (In a Good Way Probably)
The research isn’t super clean—some meta-analyses say the link between mindfulness and creativity is only small-to-medium, correlation maybe around 0.2 something. But patterns keep showing up. Open-monitoring meditation especially seems to juice divergent thinking (throwing out lots of weird ideas) way more than focused attention does.
There was this study by Colzato and others where people who did open monitoring got way better at coming up with unusual uses for everyday objects. Focused attention helped more with picking the single best answer. Most real-life mindfulness is a mix anyway.
And no, mindfulness doesn’t kill the default mode network like some people fear. It kinda tames it—less obsessive looping on bad thoughts, more room for the useful random sparks. Long-term meditators show different DMN connectivity that lines up with “aha!” moments.
Focused Attention Vs. Open Awareness Meditation
I still mess this up constantly. Last Tuesday I tried meditating and my upstairs neighbor decided 7:42pm was perfect time to practice tap dancing or whatever that thumping was. I rage-quit after 3 minutes and ate half a bag of chips instead. But on the days it kinda works? My brain unclogs a little. Less “I suck and have zero ideas” and more “huh that’s not terrible maybe I write it down”.
My Dumb Personal Experiments (Mostly Failures With a Few Wins)
- Did 10-minute guided ones on my phone sitting cross-legged on a cold hardwood floor. Thought about tacos the whole time. But right after I banged out three weird stream-of-consciousness pages that weren’t complete garbage.
- Tried “mindful walking” in the slushy parking lot noticing every gross sensation (wet socks, nose running, car exhaust smell). Felt ridiculous but later that day I unstuck a story I’d been blocked on for a month.
- Non-judgmental journaling after meditation. Turns out when I stop calling myself “a useless disaster” every sentence and just observe the thought… sometimes it flips into something usable.
Here are a few relatable scenes of someone sitting cross-legged, phone in front, embracing the chill:
Biggest mistake? Thinking if 5 minutes helps then 45 minutes will make me Picasso. Nope. Burnout city. Shorter sessions win more often according to some quick training studies too.
5 Ways Cold and Wet Weather Impacts Your Feet – Feet First Clinic
Tips From Someone Who Still Hasn’t Figured It Out
- Start so small it’s embarrassing—3 minutes of just breathing and watching thoughts like bad reality TV.
- Do your creative thing right after. The fuzzy post-meditation brain haze is where the good stuff sneaks in for me.
- Stop judging the sessions where you think about grocery lists the whole time. That’s literally the practice.
- Open monitoring for brainstorming chaos, focused attention when you need to actually finish something.
Look, creativity and mindfulness isn’t turning me into some enlightened artist overnight. I’m still avoiding taxes while typing this, my sink has dishes from last week, and half my ideas still suck. But the science is real enough—lower stress, better mental flexibility, less DMN rumination—and my own sloppy attempts show it at least moves the needle from “completely stuck” to “kinda moving”.
If you’re blocked or just feel creatively dead like I did most of 2025, try it. Worst outcome is you sit quietly for five minutes and feel slightly less insane. Best case you surprise yourself with something halfway decent.
