A team of researchers from the universities of Stanford and Santa Clara (USA) has carried out a study that shows that people are much more creative when we go for a walk or a walk, than when we remain seated.
For the development of the study, the researchers had 40 volunteers who were asked to offer alternative uses of common objects such as a button or tweezers, giving the label of "creative response" to all those that were both appropriate and originals. The test was performed both sitting and walking on a treadmill.
The results showed that at least 81% of the participants who did the walking test experienced an increase in their creativity . The researchers explain that when we walk we become more talkative and we also associate ideas better, so the study volunteers not only spoke more but also contributed more ideas and that they were more creative.
The results of the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology , reflect that “the activity of walking could also have increased the ease with which the associated memories are activated, for example, relaxing the inhibitory competition between memories and allowing ideas with lower levels of activation come to the surface, ”says Marily Oppezzo, co-author of the study.
