Science Says Alcohol Consumption Can Increase Creativity

A writer’s block is a very common phenomenon for writers, bloggers or literary academia in general. There often comes a time when we just go blank upstairs, and ideas on what to write on become difficult to come by.

It has happened and still happens to even the greatest of writers or novelists; not to mention bloggers on steemit.

Despite its relatively common occurrence, there seems to be no definite solution or treatment to writer’s block. Most people suggest various means of dealing with it, such as finding inspiration from our surrounding an environment, reading a new book, changing locations and sceneries, watch a different genre of movie, etc.

However, an interesting scientific discovery was made by an assistant professor of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Graz in Austria, Dr. Mathias Benedek, who is also the lead author of the recent study of the connection between creativity and alcohol.

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Source

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Dr. Benedek through his study has discovered that moderate alcohol can be used to increase creativity. So, when next you are hit with a writer’s block or artisitic imspiration lags, you might want to consider a glass of wine, a beer or two, a tonic or vodka to help get your creative juices flowing again.

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Comparing Women and Men

In their 2017 study published in the “Consciousness and Cognition” scientific journal, Dr. Benedek and his co-authors “examined and evaluated the effects of alcohol on executive and standard measures of creative control”. Out of the 70 people examined, 54 percent were women and between the ages of 19 and 32 years of age. The study showed that both women and men performed at the same level.

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Popping of bottles

Wine was not included in the study. Instead, Beer which is a common university drink was used by the scientists for the study because it was available in both in both alcoholic and nonalcoholic variants. The group of alcohol drinks consumed Gösser Zwickl- a naturally brewed Austrian beer with 5.2 percent alcohol volume. However, the placebo-group consumed Gösser Naturgold by the same brewery with less than 0.5 percent alcohol volume. Both Beers were similar in taste and colour.

To be fair in the result and reasonably objective, the scientists adjusted the amount of beer consumed by the participants by age, gender, and weight. For instance, 22-year-old males standing at about 6 feet tall and weighing approximately 165 pounds consumed a little over 16 ounces of beer. While women of the same age at 5 feet 5 inches in height and weighing about 143 pounds consumed about 12 ounces.

The participants were actually tested for sobriety before the commencement of the study. Prior to the study, they were asked to avoid drugs or alcohol 24 hours before the research, and were not allowed to take caffeinated beverages at least 2 hours before the study.

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Word Association Analysis

It took about two hours to complete the experiment. Participants were tested for executive and creative functions before, during and after the test.

An interesting part of the experiment saw the participants self-grading their intoxication level. It was only after the test that certain participants found out that they had actually consumed non-alcoholic beer.

The experiment did however show that both the alcohol and placebo-group felt slightly intoxicated after the test. But those who drank alcoholic beverage showed a definite improvement in the Remote Associates Test (RAT) which is a measure of an individual’s creativity.

The Remote Associates Test (RAT) determines the creativity of individuals by requiring the participants to find one word that links three dissimilar words together. Example;

• Sage – paint – hair: brush
• French – car – shoe: horn
• Chamber – mask – natural: gas
• Main – sweeper – light: street

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Executive and Creative Functions

The study revealed that moderate alcohol intake improved creativity and word association, but impaired executive brains functions which is the mental skill required to manage time effectively and get things done.

An aspect of the experiment showed insignificant results for thinking “outside the box”, which according to neurosciences is known as divergent thinking.

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Creative Problem Solving

A psychology scholar of “Psychology Today”, Sian Beilock Ph.D. also recently reported that alcohol’s effect on the mental prowess that aids us in deciding what to keep in mind and what no to, (known as the “working memory”) reduces the ability to focus on certain functions and ignore others.

This effect of alcohol describes by Beilock, directly benefits innovative problem solving. Sian Beilock further implied that the more you know about a subject, the harder it gets to think creatively about it. She said alcohol helps by blocking some of the items you may know, while allowing access to the more creative aspects of the brain.
Another study completed by psychologist Jennifer Wiley, at the University of Illinois at Chicago was a similar study to the one conducted in Graz, Austria. Wiley’s study was conducted prior to the “Psychology Today” article of 2012.

The study by Jennifer Wiley, had test participants getting drunk with vodka and cranberry drinks, to an alcohol level of 0.075 percent, while keeping other test subject sober.

For the Illinois study, social drinkers ranging from 21 to 30 were recruited for the exercise through Craigslist and they participated in the RAT assessment study just like the study at the University of Graz.

The result of the study proved similar; as the inebriated participants were able to solve the same three-word dissimilarity assessment quicker that those who were sober.

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In Summary

When it comes to drinking too much alcohol, every individual must know their own limits. Despite the various studies, the brain functions which require cognitive control and executive functions (analytical-thinking tasks) are pretty much easier to deal with when the body is not inundated with alcohol.

However, the study has quite obviously revealed that creative thinking processes and inventive problem solving do benefit from a consumption of a beer or two, because the alcohol consumption tends to block executive functions and then allow the inspiration to flourish.

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Reference: Ref 1, Ref 2, Ref 3, Ref 4

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