WALK THIS WAY
“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
It turns out the German philosopher was really onto something there. A 2014 study by Stanford found that walking did indeed increase creative thinking. They examined creativity levels of people while they walked versus while they sat, and found a person’s creative output increased by an average of 60 per cent when walking. Nietzsche wasn’t alone in his belief, and there have been many well-known ‘walkers’ throughout history – Henry David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Ludwig van Beethoven…, even Socrates and Aristotle were known to teach while walking with their students in the grounds of the Lyceum.
Whether you are looking for the solution to a problem or a creative spark, walking can help. But there are many more benefits than thinking of the perfect witty ending to a presentation or a way to fix the shower head – walking has been shown to promote a longer, healthier, happier