Creative challenge: Regular exercising moderates the association between task-related heart rate variability changes and individual differences in originality

Abstract

Coping with mental challenges is vital to everyday functioning. In accordance with prominent theories, the adaptive and flexible adjustment of the organism to daily demands is well expressed in task-related changes of cardiac vagal control. While many mental challenges are associated with increased effort and associated decreased task-related heart rate variability (HRV), some cognitive challenges go along with HRV increases. Especially creativity represents a cognitive process, which not only results from mental effort but also from spontaneous modes of thinking. Critically, creativity and HRV are associated with regular exercising and fitness. Furthermore, the cross-stressor adaptation theory suggests that changes in cardiac reactions to physical challenges may generalize to mental challenges. In line with this idea the amount of regular exercising was hypothesized to moderate the association between HRV changes and creativity. A sample of 97 participants was investigated. They reported the amount of regular exercise and their ECG was measured at baseline and during a creativity task. An association between task-related HRV changes and originality as a function of participants’ amount of regular exercise was found. Participants reporting more regular exercising produced more original ideas when they had higher HRV increases during the task, while more sedentary participants showed the opposite association. Results suggest that individuals with a higher amount of regular exercise achieve higher originality probably via the engagement in more spontaneous modes of thinking, while more sedentary people may primarily benefit from increased mental effort. This supports the conclusion that higher creativity can be achieved by different strategies.

Sex-specific contribution of lipid accumulation product and cardiometabolic index in the identification of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease among Chinese adults

“…Current smoking was described as regular cigarette smoking for over 6 months at the time of physical examination [ 18 ]. Regular exercising was described as 30 min of moderate-intensity activity for over three times a week [ 19 ].…”

Exploring Factors that Differentiate Art and Non‐Art High School Students

“…Originality training is usually focused on strengthening habits related to the clustering of creative personality traits, luck, and regular physical exercise (Brand, 2015;Rominger et al, 2019;Scheffer, Baas, & Bjordam, 2017). An overview of the literature related to the effectiveness of creativity training programs suggests that imagery training was less effective than idea production and cognitive-oriented training (Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004).…”

“…There are many methods of improving divergent thinking through training, but originality is the most difficult to strengthen (Benedek, Fink, & Neubauer, 2006; van de Kamp, Admiraal, van Drie, & Rijlaarsdam, 2014). Originality training is usually focused on strengthening habits related to the clustering of creative personality traits, luck, and regular physical exercise (Brand, 2015; Rominger et al., 2019; Scheffer, Baas, & Bjordam, 2017). An overview of the literature related to the effectiveness of creativity training programs suggests that imagery training was less effective than idea production and cognitive‐oriented training (Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004).…”

Ecological Momentary Assessment of Creative Ideation

“…As the literature is rich in individual traits that have been associated with creativity, such as the personality trait openness (e.g., S. B. Kaufman et al, 2016; McCrae, 1987), schizotypy (e.g., Abu-Akel et al, 2020; Fink et al, 2014; Rominger et al, 2017; for meta-analysis, see Acar & Sen, 2013), positive affect (Baas et al, 2008), or physical activity/fitness (Latorre Román et al, 2017; Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014; Rominger, Fink, et al., 2020; Rominger, Papousek, Fink, et al, 2019), just to name some examples, the potential number of approaches are manifold. In order to replicate past laboratory findings with an EMA approach, researchers could combine the creative potential assessed in the field with a neuroscientific method.…”