Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting, study finds (2014)

Of course it does, and is it any surprise the most innovative city and urban centers in the world are the most walkable?

Possibly related to "showerthoughts", in that removal of stimuli allows for latent realizations to surface.

I read this book earlier this year, The Brain at Rest: The Life-Changing Science of Doing Nothing by Joseph Jebelli, It's on a similar thread

Anecdotally, that has always been true, but you can next-level the creativity with a walk with some nicotine!

It's astounding how many work problems I've found the solution to in just. the 80 ft walk to the bathroom. If I ever managed people, I would absolutely mandate scheduled movement/calisthenics/walking breaks. Almost seems like a cheat code.

So that explains Linus Torvalds and his treadmill desk.

Any form of exercise helps. Do not think of one second that it's only for your body -- it's equally important for your mind. I used to ride by bike by the coast every night, 365 days a year, 20km loop for exactly 40 mins. I couldn't have survived all the stress from work without it. Absolutely a lifeline. Don't keep reading my thread, go for a walk!

I try to walk 10k steps every day. Not only for my health but also for my mind. It helps me to calm down and gain fresh energy for other tasks.

https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xlm-a0036577.pdf

Dictation + Claude enable this to be an actual working modality now. Does anyone else find themselves working in this way. (In addition to decompression walks of course!)

https://www.inferterra.com/the-new-workspace-a-first-princip...

I wonder do the same benefits appear while cycling

Could have just asked me. I've taken advantage of that in the bulk of my life.

I intuitively agree. Some of my good ideas come from sprint walking...and sitting on the toilet.

Absolutely. If the weather isn't nice, I will even walk around in the office.

> Taking a Walk May Lead to More Creativity than Sitting, Study Finds (2014)

Note publication year. This might have been very useful in 2014. But we’re now in the agentic era. Sure, I was a skeptic for the last three years, but as of December the models are bursting at the seams with insight and creativity. I personally haven’t had a creative thought since March. My agents work on one monitor, the other monitor has a YouTube playlist of videos about yak shaving agentic loops. But I imagine that my agents will be consuming those videos as transcripts by the end of the summer.

This is absolutely true. Try taking a meeting or call about problem solving on a walk.

I was not a believer in this, Covid walks using an iPad mini with a SIM card was great.

What about the whole idea came together in the shower thing? Would be interesting to see comparable data for showering.

Enter...Aristotle's Peripatetic school[0].

And now for the peripatetic programmer...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic_school

Yes, I am very lucky to be able to walk to work, it really helps with everything

It’s good that they proved it I guess. But they could have just asked literally any person in history doing anything creative as a job.

My secret is out

No surprise there. Taking a walk flushes your brain with fresh and different thoughts. That always helps with getting a fresh start on things you're working on.

I write all my best code when I'm driving my car.

No-one distracting me, no-one can phone me, nothing to do but sit there and look out of the window, try and keep the nose between the ditches and the oily side facing the ground.

Then when I get home I just need to type it all in.

I am optimising this: I try to do this while sleeping.

Still too early to showcase what kind of progress I have made here ...

There’s no way anyone who’s ever taken a walk doesn’t know this again the most obvious thing ever is now a paper

"the only thoughts of value are those reached through walking" - Nietszche

(reading that in German might have more nuances)

True Story!!

I especially despise sitting down right after lunch to get back to work.

I must take a walk first.

Taking a walk right after eating helps stabilize blood sugar and digestion.

Highly recommend.

Absolutely agree. I circumnavigate Lake Merritt pretty much every day mostly because it puts my brain a good place to be productive. The exercise is helpful too.

Yeah, and shift your eyes around, it gets you out of your head and makes you more aware of your environment as you walk!

In other news, water is wet.

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