Walking for creativity

Probably when we hear the word of `creativity`, workplace is not the first thing comes to our minds. Despite this we also know, it is a desired `feature´ of a candidate or an employee. I will not discuss here if employees have the space to be creative at work or not. I would like to talk about a way to increase our creativity.

Mariyl Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz published a research in 2015 focusing on the relationship between walking and creativity. How does it sound ?

I really like the research design and the results. Without going into the details, let me give you an overview.

They measured the creativity with participants` ideas on using common objects in alternative ways. Appropriate novelty was the criteria. Participants were assigned in different groups with different conditions and orders of walking and sitting. The results showed that participants who were walking were significantly more creative than the ones who were sitting (This is of course a super brief summary of the results).

It does not mean we can suddenly become artists but creativity is not something that is just available for special people or something we cannot improve. The word itself may cause some pressure however we should not forget that even though we may not be perfect at certain things, there are always different ways to become better at them. Clearly walking is one of the ways to become more creative.

If you are interested, the article is here: “Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking”.
the Tedx talk is here: Want to be more creative? Go for a walk.

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