You know that feeling when you've been grappling with a problem and finally a solution just arrives in your brain?

That's an "aha moment", and you've got to it through the process of "insight", a problem solving technique.

Insight is characterised by a sense of confusion and feeling stuck, followed by a sudden realisation — the aha moment — when it all just falls into place.

It's a process that relies on your relaxed brain, in contrast to the step-by-step process of logical problem solving, and it's usually accompanied by pleasure and surprise.

Aha experiences are often special moments in our lives, and most of us have a story about one.

But they're also of great interest to psychology researchers keen to put their power to positive use.

"The aha experience has been shown to be helpful for learning, memory, and motivation," said Margaret Webb, a psychology researcher at the University of Melbourne.

"For example, one study was looking at a class of students who hated mathematics ... and when these students started to have aha moments their attitude towards mathematics changed."

Despite it being more than 2000 years since Archimedes had his 'eureka!' moment, we still don't know much about aha moments and the process of insight.

And much of what we do know is based on studies of undergraduate students.

For this reason, Dr Webb and her colleague Simon Cropper have teamed up with ABC Science to run the 'Aha! Challenge' as part of National Science Week, and they want people of all ages to take part.

"We're really interested in a sample that is outside the university," Dr Webb said.

The researchers are particularly interested in what happens to the intensity and frequency of aha moments as we get older.

"We want to get a sense of how does it change as people develop, from young to old, across the lifespan," Dr Cropper said.

"My feeling is that kids have it a bit more often — the world is a bit more wondrous to them, and they're a bit less battered down by reality.

"But I would like to think it does maintain in everyone."

How do you research aha moments?

The Aha! Challenge tries to prompt an aha moment by getting people to tackle some tricky brain teasers and problems, and they can be pretty tough.

"We're using techniques that are used in the insight literature. They're all brain teasers, and puzzles and tricks that are designed to elicit an aha event," Dr Webb said.

Once you've solved the problem, you then need to provide some information about how you felt about it: did you get an aha moment? Were you surprised?

What's going on in the brain?

Brain scans show there is a distinct neural pattern in the brain when you suddenly 'get it'.

But the process of getting to the aha moment is very individual, Dr Cropper said.

"Some people will have insight far more than others, and some people will feel insight to something that others don't."

Aha moments tend to happen when we're in a relaxed or sleepy state, such as when we're daydreaming, having a shower, walking in nature, or even when we're fully asleep.

"Your brain does so much stuff when you're not aware of it," Dr Webb said.

"When you're a little more relaxed, you have more alpha waves in your brain.

"This lets you make more loose associations… and you can start to branch out and search for all those other answers."

And for that reason your smartphone may be your aha moment enemy, simply because we often turn to them in those moments we'd otherwise be daydreaming or bored.

"[With smartphones] we're taking away the time that we would normally use to let those loose associations build ... where we might have been staring out the window or talking to other people and making those new connections," Dr Webb said.

Confused? You could be about to have an aha moment

While the circumstances that lead to aha moments tend to be individual, there is one feeling that seems to be a consistent harbinger: confusion.

"One of the thing we're seeing in the research is often you need to experience a level of confusion in the lead up to having one of those aha moments," said Jason Lodge, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, who is not involved in the research.

Learning to push through the confusion and uncertainty is one of the most important factors in having an aha moment and using insight to solve problems.

"Our typical response when we're learning as humans is that we don't like to be confused," Dr Lodge said.

"But don't get frustrated and give up, because that's a really important stage towards having an aha moment."

As part of his work, Dr Lodge teaches educators to allow space for students to be confused.

"From a teacher's point of view, when you're looking out a room full of students and they've all got confused looks on their faces, it's a horrible experience," he said.

"But actually, in a lot of cases, it's vital to experience that before you have that aha moment."

Another factor that comes into play is overconfidence.

"People who do have a tendency that way [towards overconfidence] seem to be less likely to have those real insight moments because they're not going deep enough into the material to understand why it's so complicated," Dr Lodge said.

Unfortunately — but importantly — just because you have an aha moment doesn't mean that the answer or idea you've come up with is right or useful.

"People have aha moments when they're not correct at all," Dr Webb said.

"It doesn't mean it's not valid, but we have to be aware of what our body is doing and what our mind is doing.

"Be aware of the joy and certainty that we get with an idea, but also be able to push back against it."

Aha moments are actually much more common in our lives than we probably realise, Dr Cropper said.

"Insight, eurekas and aha are often associated with moments of genius, which people then do something incredible [with] and change the world," he said.

"But it would be good if people recognised that they have [aha moments] all the time, and you don't have to be a genius to feel these things.

"It's a much more common process and can be applied to day-to-day problems."