Is ”Right-Brain Thinking” Even A Thing?

Say goodbye to the "I'm not a right-brain thinker" fallacy. Today, we’ll look at the differences between the left and right side of the brain and what it means for our creativity, before finishing with an easy to way apply these ideas in your own creative process.

The left hemisphere of your brain specializes in analytical thinking. It’s good at breaking ideas apart and studying them closely. The right hemisphere specializes in holistic thinking. It’s better at the big picture.

Brain scans studies haven’t been able to find anything that we might call “side-preference.” A 2013 study took 1000 brain scans from different people and analyzed activity in 7000 different regions of the brain. The researchers concluded that the idea of being a left-brain or right-brain thinker appears to be little more than a figure of speech. There’s simply no evidence that your brain cares about which side does what.

So what makes the difference then? Why are some people clearly better with numbers and others better at artwork and design? The biggest factor is likely your personal comfort level. The brain loves doing things its good at. The loves the positive feedback loop.

People who think they’re good at math spend more time doing it, which makes them better at it. The better they get at math, the more comfortable they feel doing it, and the more time and preference they’ll have for it.

This exact same process would play out for anything. Someone aspiring to write music would develop a positive feedback loop, but instead of training your brain to recognize mathematical relationships, they’d be training their brain to recognize musical ones.

The brain doesn’t really care whether you choose math or music. Your brain doesn’t have a preference, but your ego does.

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