Having trouble with your daily GuessWord? Eat something sweet

IF you’re struggling to complete your favourite newspaper puzzle, try nibbling something sweet.

For researchers have found that the taste of sweetness can boost creativity.

But it’s not about the brain getting a sugary hit, they said. The effect of the sweet taste was specific to creativity – and did not improve performance on analytical, attention-to-detail tasks.

The link with creativity is thought to be due to the way that humans associate sweet taste with positive experiences and situations.

It could help you to work out that tricky crossword clue or solve the popular GuessWord puzzle on The Mail+.

Because positive situations are not threatening, they allow our minds to become more open, said lead researcher Dr Lidan Xu. Dr Xu, of the University of North Texas, said: ‘When people perceive the nature of a situation is positive, no threat, they are willing to adopt an explorative mindset, which broadens their attention to encompass novel ideas.’

In contrast, analytical and attention-to-detail tasks require a narrower, rigid focus, she said.

And it’s not necessary to feel a positive mood change from the sweet taste to increase our creativity – it acts as a cue to inspired thinking because of our history with sweet food, said Dr Xu.

‘Sweet taste can independently influence creativity because of the associations that people have developed with the sweet taste experience, above and beyond what sweet taste does for our mood,’ she added.

‘Sweet food is often consumed in a positive environment, such as when you are seeking comfort, during celebrations,’ she said.

‘Sweetness is also considered the most pleasurable taste in nature and ... benign.

‘People tried to use taste to differentiate whether a food was toxic or not, so sweet food signals safety, energy, and non-toxic.

‘Because of these positive associations that people have developed over a long period of time.

The researchers, whose findings are published in the journal Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, carried out seven experiments.

One found that just focusing on the idea of a sweet taste vs salty, bitter and neutral tastes, led to higher creative performance.

‘Signals safety and energy’