![]() ![]() Three of the experiments relied on a “divergent thinking” creativity test. The walking or sitting sessions used to measure creativity lasted anywhere from 5 to 16 minutes, depending on the tasks being tested. Researchers put seated participants in a wheelchair outside to present the same kind of visual movement as walking.ĭifferent combinations, such as two consecutive seated sessions, or a walking session followed by a seated one, were also compared. Participants were placed in different conditions: walking indoors on a treadmill or sitting indoors – both facing a blank wall – and walking outdoors or sitting outdoors while being pushed in wheelchair – both along a pre-determined path on the Stanford campus. The research comprised four experiments involving 176 college students and other adults who completed tasks commonly used by researchers to gauge creative thinking. The study also found that creative juices continued to flow even when a person sat back down shortly after a walk. “I thought walking outside would blow everything out of the water, but walking on a treadmill in a small, boring room still had strong results, which surprised me,” Oppezzo said. Other research has focused on how aerobic exercise generally protects long-term cognitive function, but until now, there did not appear to be a study that specifically examined the effect of non-aerobic walking on the simultaneous creative generation of new ideas and then compared it against sitting, Oppezzo said.Ī person walking indoors – on a treadmill in a room facing a blank wall – or walking outdoors in the fresh air produced twice as many creative responses compared to a person sitting down, one of the experiments found. We finally may be taking a step, or two, toward discovering why,” Oppezzo and Schwartz wrote in the study published this week in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. “Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking. Across the board, creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for those walking compared to those sitting. The act of walking itself, and not the environment, was the main factor. The study found that walking indoors or outdoors similarly boosted creative inspiration. And perhaps you’ve paced back and forth on occasion to drum up ideas.Ī new study by Stanford researchers provides an explanation for this.Ĭreative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter, according to a study co-authored by Marily Oppezzo, a Stanford doctoral graduate in educational psychology, and Daniel Schwartz, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has also been seen holding meetings on foot. Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, was known for his walking meetings. A new study finds that walking indeed boosts creative inspiration. Many people claim they do their best thinking while walking. ![]()
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