I’ve read The Breakout Principle by Herbert Benson and William Proctor as part of my exploration of the concept of creative incubation. The subtitle of this book is “How to activate the natural trigger that maximises creativity, athletic performance, productivity and personal well-being”.
Notes
- The main claim is that certain physical activities can interrupt current mental patterns and encourage new insights and greater productivity. We can learn to trigger this state.
- The authors argue that there’s a specific biological process that encourages the breakout state: our bodies build up stress hormones as we work on challenging problems, and then the breakout state releases nitric oxide to counteract the stress hormones. The calming effect of the nitric oxide may bring about creative insights and other positive effects.
- The book lists many different types of activities that some people have found effective for triggering the breakout state, including: walking in nature, listening to music, working on repetitive crafts such as knitting or needlepoint, and practicing meditation.
- A specific method recommended by the book is the “relaxation response”. The approach for achieving the relaxation response that Benson gave his clients was: “assume a comfortable sitting position, close their eyes, and repeat silently on the outbreath a neutral word, such as one, for a ten-to-twenty-minute period”. Some clients achieved much better results by replacing the neutral word with a peaceful phrase connected to their personal beliefs.
- While the pattern of work-break-insight is similar to the discussions of creative incubation connected with sleep that I’ve read about elsewhere, there isn’t much mention of sleep in this book.
- Turning the process of triggering breakouts into an ongoing habit may increase overall wellbeing and make peak experiences more likely. (The book defines “peak experiences” as “characterised by great insight, freedom from fear and anxiety, and a sense of being unified with an infinite or external dimension of reality”.)
Reflections
The discussion of the relaxation response caught my attention because I independently developed a practice similar to this myself, after learning about mindfulness meditation and experimenting with techniques that seemed to work better for me.
The case studies in the book suggest that different people will find different activities to be more effective for triggering the breakout state. If you’re interested in this technique, it may be worth experimenting with several different activities. Unexpected ones may be helpful – the book mentions some male actors and businessmen who’ve used needlepoint and knitting to encourage insights and improved productivity.