Walking Your Brain to Better Ideas: The Effects of an Acute Bout of Exercise on Creativity

Abstract

Creative thinking is a cognitive ability essential for generating creative solutions to modern problems in most real-life settings. Despite its constant use, research on cognitive enhancement has primarily focused on other forms of cognition such as attention, executive function, and memory as well as their underlying brain mechanisms. This study aims to determine whether a single bout of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, a well-established cognition-enhancing strategy, may play a role in changing the way the brain works to support creative performance.