A student asked me about my habit of bike riding or walking in the forest as a way of gaining inspiration. I thought I'd share my response: I suspect everyone is different but all of our brains need time to process information. Some of this happens in sleep -- the idea that if you have a hard problem that you should "sleep on it" is very true. I often wake up with an inspiration. You need to give your brain time to do its thing. You can't control inspiration. All you can do is create opportunities for it to occur. I often have ideas in a dark conference hall while half-listening to a boring talk. I'll have spent the day at posters and learning about new work. Sitting in the dark and letting my mind drift is when those fragments come together into something new. I will often do some work early in the morning and hit a snag. Then I go for a bike ride in the forest. I am not intentionally thinking about my problem -- I'm in the moment. My body is moving in the world. But part of my brain must be working on the problem because within 15-20 minutes, I have the solution. The brain is amazing. Cramming it with information all the time may feel productive. But feeding it information is very different from letting it be creative. You can't force it to be creative and if you are force feeding it, it can't be creative. You need to leave it alone. Let it wander. Let it make connections. Give it space. Trust it.