Feeling like your creativity has been stunted or sucked out by a giant vacuum cleaner hose that reached down from the cosmos?
Then take a hike.
No, my dogs and I don’t mean that you should go away, but that you set out for a short hike or even a leisurely stroll.
According to a New York Times article, writers from Robert Louis Stevenson and James Joyce to Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein have used walking as a way to spark ideas. My dad Leonard Gross, who recently published a novel called The Memoirs of JFK: If Kennedy Had Survived, routinely walks around his neighborhood with a small tape recorder in hand. I don’t go come armed with a tape recorder, but I call myself to leave a message when ideas pop up while I’m on the trail with my pups.
“Circumstantial evidence, at best,” I hear you say.
Nope. It’s fact.
Four separate studies discussed in a Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition article published in April established that people were able to conceive up to 100 percent more uses for an object such as a button while walking than they could while seated. It didn’t matter if they walked inside or outside. Being up on their feet and moving simply lubricated their creativity, including their facility for linguistic analogies according to one of the studies.
So next time you feel like you’re dry, just stroll—or hike—back to the well. My pups will be more than happy to join you. They’re much more creative and much less likely to get into trouble after a nice, long walk.
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