Exercise Gets Creative Juices Flowing

By WILSON, Kym

When your job asks you to brainstorm on a regular basis, even a marketing guru will hit the creative wall once in a while. To keep those mental blocks to a minimum, it’s been recommended that you get some aerobic exercise during your day.

I know for myself, some of my best ideas come to me while on a run or a bike ride.

A recent study about the effects of exercise on creativity concludes that a little workout pays big dividends:

* Group 1 did no exercise prior to their creative task.

* Group 2 did in 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, such as walking and swimming, before their creative task.

* Group 3 also took 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, but waited for two hours before starting on their creative task.

It was found that the two latter groups performed significantly better on the creative task than the group that did no exercise.

With this in mind maybe you should consider:

* Going to the gym, or at least for a brisk walk, ahead of your brainstorming sessions.

* Lunchtime walking/exercise groups to encourage afternoon creativity.

* Considering mini-workouts when you’re in the middle of extended creative sessions.

As well as showing that aerobic exercise enhances creativity, it is also obvious that the positive effects of activity last for at least up to two hours after completing the exercise.

So even more of a reason to get out of the office and into some exercise.

* Kym Wilson is a business growth consultant at her company Business Breakthroughs. She can be contacted at info@businessbreakthroughs.co.nz or on 027 2500 435.

(c) 2008 Evening Standard; Palmerston North, New Zealand. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.