Hi dear steemians...
The benefits of physical activity are often brought to bear on physical and mental health. Here's a new proof with this serious study that suggests that walking, even at low intensity, stimulates creativity.
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Musicians, writers, philosophers or scientists: many have indulged their art after their daily walks, so we come to wonder if the secret of their inventiveness does not come from these hikes. Maybe if, to read a study published in 2014 in Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.
The context: geniuses followers of the ride
What do Rousseau, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Dickens, Socrates or Darwin have in common? Perhaps they owe their genius to their liking for walking. All of them liked to wander several times a day in the streets of the city or in the countryside. So much so that a legend was born around the benefits of hiking on reflection and creativity.
But never this idea that crosses the ages has been verified according to a scientific protocol. At best, studies have shown that physical activity preserves cognitive functions in the long term. Not to mention the benefits for the rest of the health.
Marily Oppezzo of Stanford University (San Francisco, USA) wanted to confront this popular hypothesis with rigorous methods. Before validating it before the obvious facts.
The study: from walking born the creative idea
A total of 176 students from the prestigious University of California played the game. Several small experiments were conducted to test the ability of these young people to think differently, a process to test creativity, before or after a short walk, to indoors or outdoors. These exercises, described below, were done while seated, or after a session on a treadmill, while others were walking on campus, on their feet or pushed in a wheelchair, to test whether the outside air constituted a stimulating factor.
Among the experiments proposed, one of them consisted in finding a maximum of uses to an object in 4 minutes. Example: what can a button serve? To button. But not only. It acts as a doorknob in a doll's house, or can replace a missing eye on a stuffed animal. Others can use it as a pocket strainer, or let them fall behind to find their way, like the pebbles of Petit-Poucet. The imagination could follow its free course, but within a certain limit. Whoever answered that a tire could act as an engagement ring was not taken seriously. Walking in a small room on a treadmill increased creativity by 60%.
The external eye: a link between physical activity and creativity?
Creativity seems to be generated by a succession of stages, from the generation of the idea to its execution. Nevertheless, will not become Leonardo da Vinci who wants. But in case of need, a small walk along the water could well generate a spontaneous and promising concept.
Striking statement ... but which can not be explained yet. The authors lack imagination to find the causes behind this phenomenon. And wonder if other low-intensity physical activities can produce such a flood of creativity. But which protocol to use? Let's walk a little, it should help ...
Source: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xlm-a0036577.pdf
