Want to be more creative? Go for a walk

Marily Oppezzo shares her research showing that walking boosts creative thinking. In a series of experiments, she found that people generated more creative ideas while walking compared to sitting — and the creative boost persisted even after sitting back down.

Key Arguments

1. Walking increases divergent thinking by ~60%. Across four experiments, participants produced significantly more creative responses on the Alternate Uses Test while walking.
2. It’s the walking, not the environment. The effect held whether walking outdoors or on an indoor treadmill facing a blank wall, suggesting it’s the physical act of walking rather than the scenery.
3. The effect carries over. Creative gains from walking persisted during a subsequent seated creative task, suggesting walking primes creative thinking.

Evidence Context

This talk is based on Oppezzo and Schwartz (2014), a well-designed series of experiments published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. The effects are specific to divergent creative thinking and may not apply to tasks requiring focused, convergent reasoning.