“...feelings of anxiety stimulate your limbic system, causing your brain to release stress hormones. The limbic system stops communicating with the cerebral cortex, the part of your brain responsible for creativity. Your heart pounds, you stop being able to concentrate, and you’re locked out of your brain—creatively speaking. ... Many of the behavioral strategies that ease depression and anxiety can also counteract writer’s block.”
Science can help you beat writers block.
I think the same strategies will also work with general creativity blocks. Some of these that came to mind are:
Distractions – briefly taking our focus away from bloody-mindedly pushing at the problem. Going for a walk, doing something unrelated, even sleeping on the problem.
Cognitive behavior therapy – the CBT technique of rationally challenging unhelpful beliefs using evidence and behaviour changes. We can proactively work on our own to dispel entrenched notion of our creative limitations and inadequacies.
Mindfulness – Regularly pausing to check in with our internal states, so that we know when we have hit a lull in our creativity, or when we are starting to self-blame and ramp up our own anxieties. Linking mindful awareness to CBT techniques to make changes can be transformative.
