Two Sylvias' Weekly Muse: March 17, 2024

Issue 99

Hello, Poets, Writers, and Artists!

We’re approaching the Spring Equinox, which marks the moment when the sun is directly over the Earth’s equator, resulting in our night and day being roughly the same length—an equal amount of light and darkness. We recently came across an interesting creativity study in which researchers looked at how our exposure to light and dark can affect our creative ideas and output. Several years ago, in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, professors Anna Steidle and Lioba Werth wrote an article which challenged the long-held belief that most of us are more creative when we are in a room filled with daylight, calming colors, houseplants, windows looking out on nature, and comfortable furniture. They wondered what might happen if we were to perform our creative endeavors in dimmer light that verges on darkness.

What Steidle and Werth discovered in their research is that participants performing creative activities in dim light reported that they felt cozy an…