Peer-reviewed research
Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking
Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2014 · DOI 10.1037/a0036577
Read the originalRead on October 16, 2026
- What it is
- Four experiments in which adults sat or walked, indoors on a treadmill or outdoors, while completing tests of creative thinking. Walking raised scores on the divergent-thinking test for most participants.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed and widely cited. Most participants were university students, and the tasks were short idea-generation tests, not writing. The study does not measure drafting, dictation or the quality of prose.
Facts taken from this source
- In the same 2014 experiment, walking raised the scores of only 23 percent of participants on the remote associates test of convergent thinking.
“but only increased 23% of participants' scores for the CRA” (Abstract, Experiment 1)
- In a 2014 experiment, walking raised the creativity scores of 81 percent of participants on the alternate uses test of divergent thinking.
“Walking increased 81% of participants' creativity on the GAU” (Abstract, Experiment 1)
- In Experiment 4 of the 2014 walking study, walking outside produced the most novel and highest quality analogies, compared with sitting inside, walking inside on a treadmill, or being rolled outside in a wheelchair.
“Walking outside produced the most novel and highest quality analogies.” (Abstract, Experiment 4)
- In Experiment 2 of the 2014 walking study, participants who sat down after walking still showed a residual boost in creative scores.
“when seated after walking, participants exhibited a residual creative boost” (Abstract, Experiment 2)