Mindfulness and creativity: Implications for thinking and learning
Open accessAbstract
Mindfulness and creativity have both come to the forefront of educational interest-but a better understanding of their relationship and the implications for education is needed. This article reviews the literature on the intersection of these topics in order to understand where and how these two related but distinctive areas of research connect, and how this pertains to the complexity of education settings. Our goal is to understand findings from the literature and consider the implications for educational practice and research, with an eye to how mindfulness can be supportive to learners' creativity. This thematic review and qualitative analysis of extant literature identifies four themes that speak to the connection between mindfulness and creativity. There is solid evidence to show a generally beneficial and supportive relationship, in that practicing mindfulness can support creativity-but many factors affect this and there are a range of considerations for practice. This article reflects on the key findings of scholarly work on the mindfulness-creativity relationship with interpretative discussion and implications for educational research and practice.
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Focused attention and heightened cognitive flexibility may benefit problem-solving, allowing for the generation of creative solutions.
“This focused attention and heightened cognitive flexibility may benefit problem-solving, allowing for the generation of creative solutions [77, 78, 86, 87].”
From Emotion Regulation as a Mechanism of Mindfulness in Individual Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Depression and Anxiety Disorders (2024) · cites this paper as [87]
The Discussion section (‘Allowing purposeful mind-wandering’; page unavailable) says focused attention benefits analytic creative problem-solving, while shifting awareness may help when a solver gets stuck. The paper also links open-monitoring meditation with divergent thinking, but the cited passages do not establish heightened cognitive flexibility as a specific benefit. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIncreased awareness promoted by mindfulness may allow individuals to maintain attention on a task and encourage them to look at the bigger picture rather than get stuck on specific details of a particular problem.
“the increased awareness promoted by mindfulness may allow individuals to maintain attention on a task and encourage them to look at the bigger picture rather than get stuck on specific details of a particular problem [86, 87].”
From Emotion Regulation as a Mechanism of Mindfulness in Individual Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Depression and Anxiety Disorders (2024) · cites this paper as [87]
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Pruessner, L., Timm, C., Kalmar, J., Bents, H., Barnow, S., & Mander, J. (2024) · Depression and Anxiety · doi:10.1155/2024/9081139 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
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Background
- Authors
- Henriksen, D., Richardson, C., & Shack, K.
- Affiliations
- Arizona State University (US)
- Kamehameha Schools (US)
- Corresponding author
- Henriksen, Danah
- Venue
- Thinking Skills and Creativity
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-09
- Volume
- 37
- Pages
- 100689
- ISSN
- 1871-1871 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7395604
- OpenAlex
- W3046337306
- Cited by
- 194
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 22.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Thinking Skills and Creativity (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Creativity in Education and Neuroscience
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychological and Educational Research Studies
- Keywords
- mindfulness, creativity, learning, teaching practice, student creativity in learning, thinking skills
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