Give your ideas some legs

The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking

As we read in last month’s newsletter, Ruth Atchley and her colleagues research suggested that, given the results of their hiking test subjects, that simply the act of walking, in nature, away from technology engages the bodies ‘default mode’ and offers a sure-fire way to increased creativity. This ‘default mode’ defines an area of the brain that is most active when we’re engaged in restful introspection and can be seen when people wakefully rest in MRI scanners and let their minds wander.

Outdoors is good in its own right then, but Marily Oppezzo showed through experimental data that, ‘walking, rather than being outdoors, was the driver of novel, high-quality analogies. While research indicates that being outdoors has many cognitive benefits, walking has a very specific benefit—the improvement of creativity.’

Across the three studies in her experiment, participants were respectively 81%, 88% and 100% more creative when walking rather than sitting.

I’d encourage everyone to look up her TED talk on all this and do as she says – ‘Take Your Ideas for a Walk’

Oppezzo, M., Schwartz, D.L. 2014. Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Vol 40, No. 4. https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xlm-a0036577.pdf