Walk to Ignite the Creative Being in You: Study

Stanford University researchers have revealed that walking helps in increasing a person's creativity by 60 per cent.

According to researchers Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz, creative outburst was seen after walking and whether it was done indoors or outdoors was not an important point.

In one of the experiments, participants were made to walk on a treadmill facing a blank wall or walking outdoors. Scientists found that walking generated creative responses two times more compared to people who were just sitting down. After the walks, creative quotient was not affected even after they sat down.

"Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking. We finally may be taking a step, or two, toward discovering why," the researchers said.

However, when walkers were given problems which needed a single answer, they lagged behind a bit from those who responded while sitting, said the research.

The study was published in American Psychological Association's Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.

"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," said Oppezzo, a former Stanford doctoral graduate researcher in educational psychology who is now a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University.

Oppezzo further said that the next step would be an attempt to understand the exact reason for the association between walking and creativity. Co-founder of Apple late Steve Jobs was known to favour walking meetings.

Source: Medindia