Does Walking Boost Your Creativity?
I walk every day.
I go to the terrace of our apartment building and walk for 30–40 minutes in the afternoon.
I love walking because it helps me clear my head, is a great exercise, and I can wear the trousers that I hadn’t worn in 1 year.
I could not believe myself when I tried on those trousers and they fit so well.
But there is another reason why I was so hellbent to incorporate the habit of walking in my daily routine. A more important reason than trying to get inside my old trousers.
Many writers I follow on Medium and on Twitter say that walking helps you generate ideas. So, I decided to try.
I tried it and I was generating ideas.
But…
Does walking actually help you write better? Does it make you more creative?
Was it the walking that helped?
Or was I already good at generating ideas, and walking had but a little effect on it?
While researching on google I found an experiment done by Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz of Stanford University.
The results of the experiment said that walking — indoors on a treadmill or outdoors at a bustling university — substantially enhanced creativity.
Participants of the research were more creative walking than sitting. Also, all participants who walked outside generated at least one novel high-quality analogy compared with 50% of those seated inside.
Conclusion
Yes, walking works.
It makes you more creative and helps generate new and novel ideas. So, when there is a need to generate new ideas, you must incorporate walks in your everyday life.
Therefore, walking is an easy-to-implement strategy to increase appropriate novel idea generation, in addition to providing health benefits.
Thank you,
Joydeep Biswas
I walk, think, and publish articles on writing, introspection, and self-improvement.
You can read my Substack here.
