Why daydreaming is the key to being creative

The 21st century brain by Dr Hannah Critchlow (Torva £22, 400pp) Published: 04:30 EDT, 15 May 2026 | Updated: 04:43 EDT, 15 May 2026 There are, Dr Hannah Critchlow tells us in her revealing new book, 86 billion nerve cells in the human brain.Each of these is linked to something like 10,000 others, ‘forming a circuit board of 86 trillion connections’.The complexity of the 3lb organ in our heads is staggering. Yet it evolved in a very different world to the one in which we now live. Dr Hannah Critchlow is a neuroscientist who specialises in cellular and molecular neuroscienceWhat does it mean to be intelligent in the 21st century? And how can we improve our own thinking as AI promises (or threatens) to become all-pervasive?Critchlow, a neuroscientist and broadcaster, draws upon recent research to answer such questions.‘Emotional intelligence’, the ability to recognise and handle emotions in ourselves and others, is, she argues, ‘the starting point’. That’s because ‘it underpins the successful collaboration between people that will be the hallmark of what’s to come’.Connection with others is central to intelligence and mental health. This was demonstrated during the Covid lockdowns. One study in 2021 showed that scores in memory and intelligence tests were significantly lower in these periods of isolation. They only improved when we were allowed to interact with others again.Important, too, are aspects of thinking which are often dismissed as time-wasting.What Critchlow calls ‘mind-wandering’, the ability to ‘untether ourselves from the here and now and mentally travel’ may well be central to creativity and problem-solving.Research has shown that we spend between 25 and 50 per cent of our waking hours in such mind-wandering.Other elements in life have their impact, both good and bad, on our intelligence.Short-term stress can drive us to excel; in the longer run, it is mentally debilitating. Gut health is closely linked to brain health. Exposure to the natural world is of enormous benefit.A 2022 study of primary school children in Portugal showed that those with access to green spaces did better cognitively and had a higher IQ than those who didn’t.Perhaps our greatest challenge today is to pursue what has been called ‘cathedral thinking’, the kind of long-term planning that allowed medieval people to build the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe.‘Our brain,’ she writes, ‘may be innately in thrall to short-term gratification’, but it is also ‘capable of making and implementing grand plans over an extended period’.The worry is that, just when we most need cathedral thinking, our capacity to engage in it is being eroded by the distractions of life online. ‘A brain fit for the 21st century’ needs to be able ‘to delay immediate gratification and see things from the perspective of our ancestors and descendants’.Critchlow has written an empowering book which introduces people to the most up-to-date ideas in neuroscience and provides practical advice on equipping our brains to meet the challenges of the 21st century.