Dr. Oppezzo says she thought "walking outside would blow everything out of the water, but walking on a treadmill in a small, boring room still had strong results, which surprised me." She says theirs appears to be the first study to look specifically at the effect of non-aerobic walking on simultaneously generating new ideas, and compare it with sitting.
The effect of walking appears to persist for a little while; even if people sat down shortly after a walk, their creative juices continued to flow, the researchers found.