Mindfulness meditation and Creativity

Creativity can be defined as the phenomenon of creating something novel and useful (Ding, Tang, Tang, & Posner, 2014). In the past, creativity has been frequently associated with personal characteristics and personality traits. Now there is evidence that there are many different conditions and skills that can influence creative performance. One of them appears to be mindfulness meditation (MM). MM is a traditional form of Buddhist meditation that implies being attentive to and fully aware of present-moment experience with an open and non-judgmental attitude (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). So far, the existing body of literature on the relation between MM and creativity, insight problem solving and divergent/convergent thinking, has produced mixed results. For example, there is consistent evidence indicating that open monitoring, required during MM, leads to enhanced divergent thinking (Baas, Nevicka, & Ten Velden, 2014; Colzato, Ozturk, & Hommel, 2012; Ding, Tang, Tang, & Posner, 2014). Nonetheless, focused attention, another skill required during MM, should lead to better performance in convergent thinking tasks, but the findings on the association between focused attention and creativity are mixed (Baas et al., 2014; Colzato et al., 2012). The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the existing literature on MM and creativity, providing a perspective on future directions of this promising line of research.