Discover the benefits of putting your day on pause and taking a stroll.
Do you ever find yourself stuck in a rut in the middle of your workday? For seemingly no reason at all, there is this dark cloud of disconnect between your mind and the task at hand. We’ve all been there, oftentimes forced to stare at the clock as the seconds tick by ever so slowly. The next time this happens, try stepping outside — if your work parameters allow, of course — and going for a walk.
As a longtime creative who has been working from home for well over a decade, I’ve found that by setting my work to the side and going for a stroll, I tend to return to my desk rejuvenated and ready to tackle the remainder of the day. But you don’t have to merely take my word for it; there is actual scientific research that confirms the many benefits — including mental — of walking.
In a 2014 study, Stanford University found that walking can increase a person’s creative output by an average of 60 percent, compared to a person who is sitting.
“Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking. We finally may be taking a step, or two, toward discovering why,” Marily Oppezzo, a Stanford doctoral graduate in educational psychology (at the time), and Daniel Schwartz, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education (at the time), wrote in the study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.
The report focused on non-aerobic walking and the impact it has on idea generation, compared to sitting. And while many — including myself — champion getting outdoors for a stroll, the study concluded that you don’t have to be outside surrounded by beautiful scenery to feel the positive effects. Walking indoors — even on a treadmill — can provide similar benefits.
“I thought walking outside would blow everything out of the water, but walking on a treadmill in a small, boring room still had strong results, which surprised me,” Oppezzo said.
The research also noted that participants — who were subjected to multiple experiments to gauge creative thinking — experienced a spike in idea generation and creative output both while walking and upon sitting back down shortly thereafter. This is precisely why such movement is ideal for restoring focus, promoting creativity, and providing inspiration for when it’s time to get back to work.
Oppezzo did go on to add, “We’re not saying walking can turn you into Michelangelo.” But, if you look back throughout history, there are plenty of notable individuals who have used walking to brainstorm and come up with concepts.
Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla, for example, formulated his ideas about electricity during a walk in a Budapest park in 1882. Beethoven, the renowned composer and pianist, never missed his afternoon walk, always carrying pen and paper to jot down any musical ideas that came to mind. Charles Dickens, author of Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and other celebrated stories, frequently strolled the streets of London where he conceptualized many of his iconic works.
More recently, Steve Jobs was known to take daily walks for exercise, problem solving, inspiration, and conducting business meetings. Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg also uses walking meetings to get the creative juices flowing.
To close, though, I’ll leave you with a quote from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who walked at the same time every day for at least two hours, with his notebook in hand. He said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”