Mindfulness on Creativity

Launched by ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY · Jul 28, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This study is looking at whether a short, 5-day mindfulness training can help improve creativity in people who work in academic research, like graduate students and research staff. The researchers want to see if two types of meditation—focused-attention (where you concentrate on one thing) and open-monitoring (where you observe your thoughts without judgment)—can boost creative thinking. They will also compare these meditation methods to a control group that listens to audio recordings without meditation, and they’ll measure brain activity using special electrical signals to understand how the training might affect the brain.

If you join the study, you would be assigned to one of the three groups: focused-attention meditation, open-monitoring meditation, or the audio listening group. You’ll practice your assigned activity every day for five days and visit the research center three times for testing. You’ll also keep a daily journal about your experience with the training. To be part of the study, you need to be a graduate student or research staff member, between 18 and 65 years old, and not currently taking certain medications or experiencing severe mental health issues. The goal is to find out which mindfulness method, if any, helps researchers become more creative and how these practices change brain activity.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • Currently enrolled graduate students (Master's or PhD) or other research personnel (e.g., postdoctoral fellows, research assistants, or academic researchers).
• • Aged 18 years or older and under 65 years.
• • No current diagnosis of severe mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder).
• • Not currently taking mood-stabilizing medication (e.g., SSRIs), to avoid confounding effects on mindfulness training and EEG outcomes
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • Simultaneously participating in other mindfulness-based psychological intervention programs or courses that cannot be paused during the study period.
• • Suicidal ideation or planning reported within the past two weeks.
• • Inability to attend in-person assessments at the laboratory site.
• • Refusal or inability to provide informed consent.