Openness
Let It All In.
Inspired by ‘Open’, a song by Mike Scott, a meditation on why an open mind isn’t naïve, it’s the bravest and healthiest thing you can choose.
There is a song by Mike Scott called Open. I heard it once years ago and never forgot it. I came across it again recently and the sentiments in it really rang true. It does not arrive gently. The word ‘open’ itself is repeated like a mantra, like something that needs to be said more than once because we keep forgetting. And in a world that has grown increasingly fluent in the language of walls – borders, paywalls, firewalls, trigger warnings, safe spaces, self-care bubbles – the song lands like a cold, clarifying wind.
This is not a dismissal of boundaries. Boundaries matter. They are the scaffolding of a healthy life, the architecture that keeps us from being consumed by other people’s demands, other people’s chaos. But scaffolding is a means, not an end. You put it up so you can build something. But when our focus is purely on boundaries, we fail to let anything in. Openness to experience, to beauty, to failure, to the stranger at the door, to the idea that turns your worldview inside out. So what happens if we are more permeable? If we stop managing our experience so tightly that nothing surprising can get through.
“There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen
But is this just romantic advice for the free-spirited? Or is there something genuinely, measurably good about it? The research, as it turns out, has a lot to say.
The Science: What Psychology Knows About Openness
In personality psychology, ‘Openness to Experience’ is one of the Big Five traits — the O in the OCEAN model. It describes a person’s willingness to entertain new ideas, emotions, and situations. People who score high on openness tend to be imaginative, intellectually curious, aesthetically sensitive, and emotionally aware. They are, in a word, available . Both to the world and to themselves.
The research on what this costs and what it confers is striking.
- Higher openness has been linked to longer life, lower metabolic risk, higher self-rated health, and a more appropriate stress response.
- A 13-year longitudinal study of 2,214 adults found openness significantly predicted better cognitive outcomes over time.
- Creative engagement, which is a key expression of openness, measurably delays brain aging.
- Individuals who practice openness and express feelings openly tend to experience lower levels of anxiety and depression.
A study published in the Journal of Aging and Health found that higher openness predicted longer life, and other studies have linked that trait with lower metabolic risk, higher self-rated health, and a more appropriate stress response. The linchpin appears to be the creativity associated with openness and that creative thinking reduces stress and keeps the brain healthy.
Individuals high in creativity maintain the integrity of their neural networks even into old age, supported by a separate study from Yale University that correlated openness with the robustness of subjects’ white matter which is the connective tissue that links different parts of the brain.
Far from being a luxury, research now frames creativity as vital work for the brain. It strengthens pathways that normally weaken with age and stimulates neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt and reorganise. Crucially, this effect is not tied to talent. It is tied to engagement: the more someone practised and challenged themselves creatively, the younger their brain appeared.
The Paradox: Why We Close Down and What It Costs Us
None of this is to say that the culture of boundaries is wrong. It emerged for good reasons: from therapy, from trauma-informed practice, from the entirely reasonable recognition that some things, some people and some situations genuinely deplete and damage us. The language of self-protection has given millions of people permission to stop saying yes when they mean no.
But something strange has happened. The tools of protection have become, for many of us, the architecture of the entire life. We screen our calls. We curate our feeds. We avoid the film that might unsettle us, the conversation that might challenge our worldview, the friendship that might require something of us we haven’t budgeted for. We are, in a very modern way, extraordinarily managed.
Scientists have found that openness to experience tends to decline from middle age onward, despite its strong relationship to successful ageing outcomes. This is worth sitting with: the very trait most linked to living longer, feeling better, and remaining cognitively sharp is the one most of us gradually abandon as life gets busy and we reach for the familiar.
The Waterboys, of course, knew this intuitively. Open isn’t a song for someone who has never encountered a wall, it’s a song for someone who has built quite a few of their own. It’s a rallying cry precisely because closure is the path of least resistance. The world will always offer reasons to tighten. The song insists on something harder: the practice of remaining available.
“Seeking out activities and trying new things can have a positive effect on mental health – and those who are open to experience are curious and interested in difference, rather than feeling threatened and closed off.”
— EBSCO Research / Psyculator
The Practice: Openness as a daily act
What does it actually look like, to be open in the way the song describes? It is worth being specific, because ‘be more open’ as advice is about as useful as ‘be happier’. It needs to mean something on a Tuesday afternoon when nothing feels particularly cosmic.
Research shows that openness helps welcome new ideas and perspectives, which can make it easier to manage stress, adapt to change, and stay mentally flexible. This mindset supports stronger relationships and communication – being open-minded fosters curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to understand others’ viewpoints.
The Four Elements of Wellbeing that we teach has an element called Spirit. This encompasses community, creativity and openness to learn more about ourselves. In practice, openness might look like:
- Taking a different route home
- Reading the book someone you disagree with recommended
- Having the conversation you’ve been avoiding
- Watching something foreign
- Listening to something unfamiliar
- Letting yourself be genuinely moved by art
Happiness research has found that variation is a key factor in whether positive activities continue to enhance wellbeing or simply become routine and unremarkable. Even good things become stale if they’re never varied. Openness, by definition, prevents staleness.
One significant benefit of practising openness is enhanced emotional regulation. Individuals who practice openness are more likely to confront their emotions rather than suppress them. This proactive approach allows for better coping mechanisms in the face of stressors, with studies suggesting that those who express feelings openly tend to experience lower levels of anxiety and depression.
The Bigger Picture: A Society That Forgot How to Wonder
There is a cultural dimension to all of this that feels pressing in 2026. We live in an age of algorithmic curation where every platform is optimised to show us more of what we already think and like. Outrage spreads faster than wonder. Certainty is rewarded; ambiguity is treated as weakness. The architecture of our digital lives is, structurally, an architecture of closure.
Research has shown that openness is associated with cultural inclusion and diversity. People high in openness are more likely to promote an inclusive society, and are more likely to be curious and interested in difference, rather than feeling threatened and closed off. In an era of increasing polarisation, this is not a small thing. Open minds are not just personally beneficial. They are socially necessary.
Both Things at Once
The point – and it is worth making clearly, is not that boundaries are bad. It is that boundaries and openness are not opposites. They are complements. A boundary, well-placed, creates the safety from which genuine openness becomes possible. You cannot truly let the world in if you are so undefended that everything overwhelms you. The goal is not to be a sponge. It is to be a window: something with structure, something with form, but something through which light moves freely.
So put the song on. Let it be louder than is strictly sensible and when it tells you to be open consider just for a moment, what it might mean if you did.
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