Einstein's combinatory play: A promising practice for creativity and well-being among public health professionals

Abstract

The purpose of this commentary is to describe combinatory play as a practice for elevating creativity and well-being among public health professionals. Albert Einstein introduced combinatory play in a letter to a colleague, and, in this commentary, we define it as engagement in an intrinsically enjoyable, cognitively stimulating artistic activity that is distinct from one's job tasks and conducive to connecting ideas toward insight and creative problem-solving. Combinatory play aligns with empirical and experiential evidence demonstrating connections between art and science. We present combinatory play in the context of research on creativity and well-being, including the growing issue of work-related stress among public health professionals. To provide an example of combinatory play, we recount how Robert Frost's poem “Mending Wall” inspired email blackout periods and an intervention for health researchers. Finally, we outline concrete strategies for public health professionals to integrate combinatory play into their lives. Overall, combinatory play is a promising practice for catalyzing novel solutions to public health issues while fueling the well-being of public health professionals themselves.

1. Introduction: defining combinatory play

When a fellow scholar asked Albert Einstein about the mental processes leading to breakthrough ideas, Einstein wrote back, “… combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.” [1] What did Einstein mean by combinatory play, and how is it relevant to public health professionals?

Einstein used the phrase combinatory play to describe how he interspersed mathematical theorizing with frequent violin breaks to catalyze a thinking process of combining and recombining ideas across logical and emotional dimensions [1]. The back-and-forth play between music and math facilitated unconscious associative thinking that may have fueled “aha” moments like the theory of relativity [2]. Combinatory play was a vehicle for Einstein to fuse two of his passions and, ultimately, advance science.

In this commentary, we present combinatory play as a promising practice for public health professionals to cultivate creativity and well-being. Combinatory expresses connecting ideas from different domains (e.g., public health and art), while play evokes delight and recreation. Combinatory play, then, is engagement in an intrinsically enjoyable, cognitively stimulating activity that is distinct from one's job tasks and conducive to connecting ideas toward insight and creative problem-solving.

2. Combinatory play as a practice for creativity

The standard definition of creative work is “a novel work that is accepted as tenable or useful or satisfying by a group in some point in time.” [3] In other words, creativity involves both originality and effectiveness [4,5]. Neuroscience research indicates that it is possible to induce functional and structural brain changes that support creative cognition [6]. For example, 20 sessions of divergent thinking training (i.e., 3 min of problem-solving plus 1 min break with exposure to external ideas plus three more minutes of problem-solving) is significantly associated with increases in originality along with changes in neural activity and gray matter volume in brain regions fundamental for creative cognition [7].

Combinatory play also fits into research about the role of “incubation” in creative problem-solving. An incubation period is when an individual temporarily shifts away from a problem to focus on something else [[8], [9], [10]]. In other words, stepping away from data analysis could be an incubator for hatching transformative insight related to that data. In fact, numerous Nobel-winning scientists have performed musical pieces, exhibited visual art, or published fiction/poetry (see Table 2 in Root-Bernstein et al.) [11], indicating that Einstein has not been alone in practicing combinatory play as an incubation period. Notably, this observation does not constitute evidence of causation. However, it does suggest that there is an association between arts engagement, creativity, and scientific achievement. Combinatory play may be a way to leverage that association.

3. Combinatory play as a practice for well-being

In addition to incubating creative problem-solving, combinatory play may contribute to public health professionals’ well-being. Research suggests that one-third to one-half of researchers in health-related fields have experienced burnout [12], and stress is pervasive in academia and biomedicine [13,14]. This prevalence is problematic because work-related stress activates a cascade of autonomic dysregulation that can lead to adverse health outcomes [15] and erode processes, such as cognitive flexibility, that influence creativity [16]. Sustained exposure to stressors can deplete biopsychosocial “resources” related to creativity depending on whether an individual appraises a stressor as a positive challenge or as a threatening hindrance [16,17]. As we experienced and described in a recent autoethnography [18], researchers can leverage combinatory play as a positive challenge that optimizes the dynamic relationship between stress and creativity. Today, combinatory play continues to enhance our recovery from the visceral and intellectual intensity of public health research and practice.

Recovery is necessary to restore biopsychosocial resources depleted by work demands [19]. Combinatory play is a recovery tool that can be used during the work day or in off-job hours. Within the work day, microbreaks (i.e., momentary pauses in job-related tasks) may offset the depletion of personal resources caused by work strains as described in a conceptual article integrating research about ego depletion, work-related stress, and job performance [20].

Likewise, off-job recovery activities—specifically, “mastery” activities that are intrinsically engaging—may increase researchers' capacity for proactive behaviors, such as creative problem-solving in dynamic work environments. For example, off-job mastery experiences in the evening are related to proactive behaviors in the subsequent work day [21]. Furthermore, employees’ perceived recovery (i.e., feeling refreshed in the morning) is positively associated with their experiences of flow (i.e., peak experiences of being fully engrossed in an activity) during the subsequent work day [22]. Synthesizing these studies with our experiences, we suggest that public health professionals can prime themselves for creativity by engaging in combinatory play as a recovery strategy.

Substantial research suggests that engagement in arts positively influences mental health and reduces stress among a variety of populations [23,24]. According to the theory framework of embodied aesthetics, engaging in an art may influence personal development, perception, and consciousness through five factors: hedonism (pleasure and play), aesthetics (beauty and authenticity), meaning-making (self-expression, emotion regulation, and “connection to some bigger force”), sense of control, and generativity (productivity, self-efficacy, and love) [25]. In other words, engaging in art is deeply humanizing.

As a way to engage in art and embody aesthetics, combinatory play may be a vehicle for human flourishing, or a life well-lived in the fullest sense of personal meaning and health [26]. By cultivating connection to oneself and the surrounding world, combinatory play can improve how we—public health professionals who are completely human and, therefore, vulnerable to exhaustion—behave, think, and feel.

4. Example of combinatory play: “mending wall”

Whipping out a violin in an office environment may not be a feasible microbreak for public health researchers or practitioners. However, arts come in many forms and can be integrated in life in ways that are limited only by the imagination. Poetry has been a meaningful and feasible mode of combinatory play for the first author (“me”) of this paper. For example, Robert Frost's poem “Mending Wall” [27] awakened awareness of my own maladaptive work habits that deplete resources related to creativity. Please see Fig. 1 to read the full text of the poem.

Fig. 1.

“Mending wall” by Robert Frost [27].

In spring 2019, “Mending Wall” sparked an epiphany that my attention to incessant email disruptions (“yelping”) and an every-growing inbox (“frozen-ground-swell”) toppled (“not one stone on stone”) concentration and productivity (“gaps”), leaving me overwhelmed and exhausted (“wear our fingers rough with handling them”). The poem's imagery inspired me to protect my priorities and reduce stress by creating a digital “mending wall” in the form of email blackout periods (“set the wall between us again”). The poem's refrain “Good fences make good neighbors,” revealed the paradoxical way that intentional (“Why …”), collaborative (“meet to walk the line”) boundaries, such as email blackout periods, can strengthen human connection as individuals protect each other's personal space, aspirations, and health.

Several months later, I incorporated this poetry-inspired idea of email blackout periods into an intervention for health researchers. Many health researchers in the study experienced immediate benefits from implementing email blackout periods [28]. Furthermore, six months after the intervention, participants continued to report email blackout periods as an effective strategy to unplug from job demands. Overall, combinatory play was the catalyst for an idea that fueled flourishing—my own, other health researchers’, and the research itself.

And by 2024, the first author's insights have stuck with me (second author) as an intervention itself. As her dissertation advisor, I wanted to reduce, replicate, and understand the concepts she was weaving (neuroscience, yoga, combinatory play, and situatedness to name a few). But, the truth of combinatory play is in the practice, the embodiment, not necessarily the understanding. Now, combinatory play has changed the way I engage in research, teaching, and outreach. One motivation for publishing this commentary is to share combinatory play strategies that may help others experience their own versions of positive change.

5. How to practice combinatory play

We invite you to try the following five combinatory play strategies based on empirical and experiential evidence.

• (1)Discover what is intrinsically meaningful to you: In navigating the range of art forms, we suggest engaging in an activity that feels authentic to you, that resonates with your inner aesthetic, that helps you make meaning of the world. Dabble in an art form that genuinely interests you, regardless of what others may think. To identify art forms to try, think back to how you played as a child or teenager: Did you like to finger paint, enjoy a ceramics class in high school, beat on bongo drums? You could also reflect on past leisure experiences or current social media accounts that catch your eye: What museum exhibits have grabbed your attention? Do you slow down scrolling through a social media feed if a certain Broadway singer or ballerina pops up? Do you save websites, books, or magazines about craft projects, home design, or woodworking projects that someday you'd like to try?
• (2)Participate, don't just consume: Einstein did not merely listen to Mozart; he played Mozart. Window shopping for art forms to try can be inspirational, but there's no reason to procrastinate actually picking up the paintbrush or even putting on the tutu … at least sometimes (see #4 below). Overall, compared to passive consumption, the authors believe that actively practicing an art form enriches the visceral and cognitive texture of life.
• (3)Embrace challenge and process: Replace ego, fear of failure, and overanalysis with curiosity and even whimsy. Savor the learning curve as an integral component of ongoing growth and flourishing. Connect to an art form by immersing yourself in the momentary sensation of practicing instead of diluting the power of the present moment by focusing on a future, perfect outcome: Combinatory play is about connection, not perfection.
• (4)Be strategic in scheduling microbreaks and off-job mastery experiences: Think of microbreaks like race car pit stops—planned maintenance before the wheels come off in a fireball of work-related overwhelm. Set boundaries for your microbreaks with a phone timer. Mark off-job mastery experiences on your calendar. Stock materials for your arts-based play in a convenient place. Take a nonjudgmental, self-compassionate approach to balancing combinatory play with other health behaviors such as exercise: Combinatory play should fuel you, not drain you.
• (5)Encourage individual and collective combinatory play in work environments and public health collaborations: If there's a chance that your microbreaks or off-job activities will distract or delay people around you, communicate appropriately. Consider encouraging your colleagues and collaborators to explore combinatory play as a component of healthy, inclusive, and productive work dynamics. Institutionalizing or formalizing combinatory play is not recommended, as requiring others to engage in combinatory play may offset intrinsic, self-determined motivation. Instead of mandating combinatory play, simply support each other's “space” for artistic ventures.

6. Conclusion

Combinatory play is a promising practice to energize public health professionals and spark creative problem-solving. Connecting different networks in the brain may unlock groundbreaking, interdisciplinary approaches to wicked public health problems [29] while preserving our own health. Future work based on combinatory play could foster transformative shifts in health research paradigms, including the value of non-linear, value-based thinking beyond traditional, objectivist approaches to science [30]. Future work on combinatory play could also inform interdisciplinary training for public health professionals. Finally, future work on the role of arts in public health could strengthen the way we communicate scientific findings and interact with community members. In this way, combinatory play could enrich the daily lives of both public health professionals and the populations they serve.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.