Coaxing AHA Moments

"To trigger an insight, the best strategy is try generating a preparatory state of mind... to lower your resistance to perspective shifts," observed Bruce Grierson in his Psychology Today article, "Eureka! (March 2015) in which he describes nine approaches to accomplish this, including...

"Break a Sweat.  Go exercise for at least half an hour — and in a form that doesn't require in-the-moment concentration (running, for example, rather than squash).  The British cryptographer Alan Turing was an accomplished marathoner who reported having intellectual breakthroughs during his runs....  The vaunted 'runners' high' that many experience after around 35 minutes produces both focus and detachment, and thus may be a uniquely reliable insight-producing state."

"Sustain the 'Slow Hunch.'  If you can teach yourself to recognize the hazy sense of 'Wait a moment, there's something here,' you'd know it's time to switch off active information-gathering....  The goal is to let it linger in the shadows of the mind... assembling new connections and gaining strength until it is eventually transformed into a eureka moment."

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