it turns out that the act of walking, not necessarily the environment, is what matters when it comes to creativity. In a study conducted at Stanford, researchers found that creativity levels were higher when a person was walking, and continued to be high even when they sat back down after a walk. Being indoors, outdoors, on a treadmill, or on a sidewalk didn’t make much difference to the participants — all that mattered was that they were up and moving around, rather than sitting.