Walk Your Way to Brilliance: The Science Behind Creative Inspiration

Here’s one simple way to enhance your creative thinking

“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking” — Nietzsche

Many famous artists, philosophers, and scientists used walking to clear their thoughts, assess problems they were working on, and find inspiration for their new works of art.

• Aristotle thought walking helped talking and therefore thinking.
• Beethoven always took a pencil and paper on his walks to write down any inspiration he got.
• Tesla invented the alternative current motor while walking in a park in Budapest and reciting Goethe’s Faust.

So what makes something as mundane and simple as walking so enlightening to our brains?

Four eye-opening experiments

Stanford University scientists conducted four experiments to see if walking could increase your creative thinking.

Previous studies have shown how exercise can protect your brain and even make you smarter, but is there a creativity boost from walking?

They wanted to see if there’s more to it than just moving your body (like you would during exercise) and see if walking could trigger your mind to think more creatively.

Experiment 1: solve this while sitting and then walking

In the first one, 48 college students were asked to face two challenges while seated and then while walking. One challenge, known as Guilford’s alternate uses test (GAU), asks them to conjure up fresh, innovative ideas for everyday objects. The other, the compound remote-association test (CRA), tasks them with finding words that align with a given trio of words.

Each participant experienced both sitting and walking conditions. This approach allowed them to directly compare the same individuals’ performance in both scenarios, which can be more statistically powerful and reduce the impact of individual variability.

The results? Almost 81% of our participants witnessed a surge in creative thinking when they were on their feet, walking. They were spewing out creative ideas at a higher rate than when they were just sitting. However, when it came to the CRA test, where you connect the dots between words, walking didn’t quite deliver.

Experiment 2: try thinking creatively in these different conditions

In the second one, another group of 48 students went through three intriguing conditions: sit-then-walk (sit–tread), sit-then-sit (sit–sit), and walk-then-sit (tread–sit). Depending on their assigned condition, they would either settle into a chair, embark on a stroll, or mix it up before taking on the GAU task once more.

They found that walking leaves behind a creative residue, especially when people switch from walking to sitting. Even when they were seated after walking, their creativity remained higher than those who sat for both sessions.

So they learned that a simple walk can supercharge your creative thinking and this creativity boost remains even after you’ve kicked off your sneakers and settled back into your seat.

Experiment 3: how are your creative juices outdoor vs. indoor?

Not everyone has the luxury of a treadmill desk so the researchers wanted to see if the magic of walking and creativity held up when people were outdoors.

They tapped into what’s called the Attention Restoration Theory (ART), which says that being in natural environments can restore your tired brain. It’s like hitting the reset button on your attention span.

They took participants on a lovely stroll through a bustling university campus. They had four conditions: sit-sit, sit-walk, walk-sit, and walk-walk. Some participants had to switch rooms for each session, just to make sure the environment didn’t mess with the results. Others took a breather before their outdoor walk.

So, what did they find? Walking outdoors was like a creativity booster shot. It was just as effective as walking indoors, and it remained over time.

There wasn’t a statistically significant difference between walking outdoors and indoors. So, while the outdoors might inspire you a bit more, it didn’t play a huge role.

Experiment 4: what about different forms of walking?

Researchers introduced a new measure of creativity, called Barron’s symbolic equivalence task (BSE) which is all about generating analogies. There were four conditions: sitting inside (SitIn), walking on a treadmill inside (WalkIn), sitting in a moving wheelchair outside (SitOut), and, of course, walking outside (WalkOut).

What did they discover? Whether you were inside or outside, if you were walking, your creativity soared. A whopping 95% of those who walked generated at least one novel, high-quality analogy. Meanwhile, only 50% of those who sat managed to do the same. Walking does the trick whether it’s indoors on a treadmill or outdoors, even in the chaos of a bustling university campus.

But there’s more. Walking didn’t just make people more creative, it also made them chattier. When people walked, they couldn’t help but talk more.

The wheelchair condition didn’t hamper creativity or send it skyrocketing. So, if you’re thinking that not everyone can walk due to mobility issues, there’s hope. The key takeaway here is that movement, in whatever form it takes, can still help your creative engine.

What can we learn from this?

Walking is like that ace up your sleeve for generating fresh and smart ideas.

When your job demands a constant flow of new ideas, take a walk. And it’s not just about boosting performance but also staying healthy especially if you tend to sit too much.

As we saw in these experiments, walking enhances your associative memory. It’s like loosening the mental grip on your thoughts, letting creativity flow in. Walking makes your associative memory more agile.

The bottom line is that walking isn’t just good for your physical health.

It’s a mind booster too.