One Quick Walk Can Equal Twice The Creativity

We love what we do over here, but that being said, we’ll take any chance we can get to put down the TPS reports and get out of the office. Turns out, it can actually double your creativity. We’ve been using that excuse for years but didn’t know it was actually true! This epic article from Chris Smith on Life Hacks just blew our minds. 

Apparently Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz of Stanford University tested 179 students to see how walking impacts creativity  and the results from their study are amazing. 

Apparently the idea for the research project came from…taking a walk. Makes sense right? Oppezzo was walking with her adviser discussing possible thesis topics and the idea of checking the creativity boost due to this simple act came to life.

To start, their 176 student group did a series of tests to see how creatively they were thinking. The students completed these tasks while sitting, standing or walking. These tasks were things like find as many creative alternative ways to use an item. (Kind of reminds us of our experience when trying to find all the creative ways to use a bottle…apparently we should have done it all while walking).

They determined that the students doubled their creative ideas when they did the test walking. Part of this could have been because their level of talking increased and that’s where a lot of the creative gems apparently came from.
Takeaway? Giving yourself permission to take 5 and get those creative juices flowing can lead to an extraordinary day; so fill up your bottle and taking a quick walk because your next breakthrough could be just around the block.

It’s okay, Science told you to do it. Cheers.