This week’s Better You, Backed by Science is about walking.
Have you ever been struggling with a problem, unable to see a solution, then gone for a walk and suddenly found yourself having ideas?
It happened to me yesterday. I’d had something on my mind for much of the day. I kept turning it over, trying to work out what to do.
Then I took my dog, Daisy, for a walk. And ideas started coming to me.
They weren’t necessarily complete solutions, more like possibilities I hadn’t considered before. And I have to say, I came home feeling a little more optimistic.
Divergent Thinking
It turns out there’s some fascinating science behind this. Researchers have discovered that walking can improve creative thinking.
In fact, a meta-analysis published earlier this year brought together 23 studies involving more than 1,000 participants. The researchers found that walking substantially improved something psychologists call divergent thinking.
What does that mean?
It’s our ability to generate different ideas and possibilities. Imagine you’re trying to think of different ways to solve a problem. Divergent thinking helps you come up with possibilities.
But there’s another type of thinking, called convergent thinking. That’s when we evaluate those possibilities and work out which one is best.
And here’s what I also found useful to know. The researchers found good evidence that walking improves divergent thinking, but the evidence for an improvement in convergent thinking was much less clear.
In other words, walking seems particularly good for helping us generate ideas, rather than necessarily deciding which idea is best.
I love that distinction, because sometimes when we’re stuck on a problem, we don’t need to think harder about the same possibilities. Sometimes we need to see some new ones.
And walking may help us do exactly that.
And you don’t always need to walk outside. Because what if it’s raining?
Earlier experiments at Stanford University found that walking indoors on a treadmill could improve creative idea generation too. Or you could walk up and down some stairs, or do laps around your home.
So the benefit isn’t simply about being outdoors in nature, although a walk in nature may have other benefits of its own, and I’ve written about that in other emails and in my book, ‘Why Woo-Woo Works‘.
There’s something about walking itself that seems to help creative thinking.
And I find that really reassuring. Because when we’re busy or worried about something, going for a walk can sometimes feel like time we should be spending working on the problem.
But maybe stepping away from our desk isn’t always stepping away from finding a solution.
Sometimes it’s part of finding one.
Try This
Here’s something to try this week.
The next time you find yourself stuck on a problem, try going for a short walk.
You don’t need to walk for miles. And you don’t need to force yourself to find an answer. Just walk.
Allow your thoughts to wander a little. See what possibilities come to mind.
You might find that when you return, you have a few more ideas to work with.
Because sometimes the best way to move your thinking forward… is to move your body.
References
The 2026 walking and creative thinking meta-analysis. Link.
Walking indoors on a treadmill study. Link.
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