Steve Jobs was famous for doing his best thinking on his feet. Neuroscience is beginning to unravel why movement boosts creativity.
Steve Jobs. Photo: Getty Images
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Steve Jobs offered plenty of advice on how to come up with good ideas over the years. Some of it, like having lots of diverse experiences (“Walt Disney did LSD,” he once noted approvingly), can be hard to put into practice. But one tip is dead easy. The late Apple founder was a big believer that the best way to boost creativity was to get up and take a walk.
Just strolling around seems like it might be too simple to actually be effective. But neuroscientists are investigating why movement seems to fire up our brains and unlock ideas. What they’ve found so far suggests Jobs was on to something.
Neuroscience supports Steve Jobs
“Taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation,” Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson reported. “So much of our time together was spent quietly walking,” recalled legendary designer Jony Ives.
The Apple boss, like many of history’s great thinkers, clearly found most of his best ideas on his feet. This isn’t likely to surprise neuroscientists who have long known that not just walking, but any kind of gentle movement including swimming and cycling, boosts creativity.
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One 2024 study, for instance, tested hikers’ creativity before and after their trips and found they returned from trail significantly more creative than when they set out. Shane O’Mara, as neuroscientist and author of In Praise of Walking, has even called walking a superpower.
“Getting people to engage in physical activity before they engage in a creative act is very powerful,” he told the Guardian.
On the HBR IdeaCast podcast, Mithu Storoni, author Hyperefficient, boiled down the wisdom of her fellow neuroscientists into a simple rule: If you’re sitting around for ten minutes are are still stuck on problem, get up and go for a walk.