How to Be More Creative: 7 Science-Backed Habits That Work

Short answer: To be more creative, separate idea generation from judging ideas, then feed the generation phase with habits that have real evidence behind them: walk while you brainstorm, step away from a hard problem and do something easy that lets your mind wander, spend unplugged time outdoors, and protect your sleep. In a Stanford experiment, people produced on average 60 percent more creative ideas while walking than while sitting.^[1] None of this requires a supplement or a special personality type.

Key Takeaways

• Creativity has two jobs: generating many options (divergent thinking) and picking the right one (convergent thinking). Different habits help each one.
• Walking, even on a treadmill facing a blank wall, raised idea generation in four Stanford experiments with 176 participants, but it did not help focused, single answer problems.^[1]
• A break filled with an easy, undemanding task that lets your mind wander improved creative performance on problems people had already seen, while rest alone or a demanding task did not.^[2]
• Adults tested on day four of a device free wilderness trip scored about 50 percent higher on a creative word test than a group tested before the trip.^[3]
• Short sleep impairs attention and concentration, which undermines the hard, focused part of creative work.^[4]
• If low motivation and a flat mood last for weeks, that is a health question, not a creativity problem. Talk to a clinician.

What Creativity Actually Is (and Why It Can Be Trained)

Psychologists usually split creative thinking into two modes. Divergent thinking is the ability to produce many different, original answers to an open question, such as listing unusual uses for a brick. Convergent thinking is the ability to find the one answer that fits, such as solving a word puzzle with a single correct solution. Most real work, from writing an ad to fixing a business problem, needs both: first a wide pile of options, then a sharp filter.

This split matters because the evidence below shows that some habits help one mode and not the other. The Stanford walking study is the clearest example. Walking boosted the number of novel, appropriate ideas people came up with, yet walkers did slightly worse on a word association task that had only one right answer.^[1] So the practical rule is simple: generate on the move or away from your desk, and evaluate while seated and focused.

The other useful idea is incubation: setting a problem aside for a while and coming back to it. Many people describe solutions arriving in the shower or on a drive. Lab research suggests the type of break matters, which is covered below.^[2]

How to Be More Creative: 7 Habits With Evidence

1. Walk while you brainstorm

Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz at Stanford ran four experiments with 176 college students and other adults, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. In one experiment, creative output rose by an average of 60 percent when people were tested walking on a treadmill after first being tested sitting. In another, walkers produced twice as many creative responses as seated participants.^[1]

Two details make this practical. First, walking indoors on a treadmill facing a blank wall worked about as well as walking outside, so the movement itself, not the view, seemed to be the main factor. Second, the benefit was for generating ideas, not for focused problem solving. The researchers were careful: they did not claim walking makes anyone a genius, and they said the mechanism is still unknown.^[1]

How to use it: take a 10 to 20 minute walk with one open question in mind, and capture ideas with a voice memo. Judge them later at your desk.

2. Take the right kind of break

Benjamin Baird, Jonathan Schooler and colleagues tested incubation breaks using the Unusual Uses Task, a standard creativity measure, in a 2012 study in Psychological Science. People were assigned to a demanding task, rest, no break, or an undemanding task designed to let the mind wander. Only the undemanding task produced substantial improvements on problems people had already started, and the gain was linked to more mind wandering, not to more deliberate thinking about the problem.^[2]

How to use it: when you are stuck, do not switch to email or a hard task. Do something easy and repetitive: wash dishes, fold laundry, tidy your workspace, or go for that walk. Then return to the problem. This is also an argument for tolerating some boredom instead of filling every gap with your phone.

3. Get unplugged time in nature

Ruth Ann Atchley, David Strayer and Paul Atchley studied 56 adults on Outward Bound wilderness trips of four to six days with no electronic devices allowed. People who took the Remote Associates Test on the fourth day of their trip scored about 50 percent higher than a group tested the morning before their trip (an average of 6.08 versus 4.14 out of 10).^[3]

The authors are honest about the limit: they could not tell whether the effect came from nature itself, from less technology, or from other parts of a multi day trip. It also compared two different groups rather than the same people before and after.^[3] Treat it as promising, not proven. A practical takeaway is to combine both factors: leave the phone behind and spend real time outdoors when you need fresh thinking.

4. Protect your sleep

Harvard Health notes that when people do not get enough sleep, attention and concentration decline and reaction time slows, and it recommends aiming for seven to eight hours a night.^[4] That matters for creativity because the selection and execution phase depends on focus.

REM sleep, the stage where most vivid dreaming happens, is also tied to memory. The Sleep Foundation describes REM as strengthening connections between brain regions, says most adults need about two hours of it each night, and explains that REM periods get longer through the night, so most REM happens in the second half.^[5] Cutting your night short trims mostly REM. For a full routine, see our guide on how to sleep better.

5. Separate generating from editing

Because walking helped divergent thinking but slightly hurt convergent thinking in the Stanford work,^[1] it makes sense to run the two modes in separate blocks. Set a timer for idea generation with one rule: no criticism, aim for quantity. Then, in a later session, rank and cut. Mixing the two tends to shut down ideas before they are fully formed.

6. Write ideas down immediately

Ideas that show up during a walk or an easy task are easy to lose. Keep a single capture place (a notes app or a pocket notebook) and empty it into your project list daily. This is practical advice rather than a tested intervention, but it is what makes habits 1 to 3 pay off.

7. Build a steady routine around focus

Creative output is not only inspiration. It depends on showing up for the focused work too. Our articles on how to increase focus and building a healthy morning routine cover the convergent half of the job.

Creativity Techniques Compared by Evidence Level

When Low Creativity Is Really Low Mood

Feeling uninspired for a week is normal. Feeling flat, tired, unmotivated and uninterested in things you used to enjoy for weeks on end is different. The National Institute of Mental Health describes depression as causing symptoms that affect how you feel, think and handle daily activities such as sleeping, eating or working, and notes it can affect anyone.^[6]

No walking routine or supplement replaces care for depression. If this sounds familiar, talk to your doctor, and read our guide to men’s mental health. If you are struggling or having thoughts of suicide, NIMH points people in the United States to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988), and to 911 in a life threatening situation.^[6]

Who Should Be Careful

• People with heart, joint or balance problems should ask a doctor what level of walking or outdoor activity is safe before starting a new routine.
• Anyone with ongoing sleep problems such as loud snoring, waking unrefreshed or insomnia should get checked rather than just trying to sleep longer.
• People using stimulants or supplements to force focus should know that none of the habits above depend on them, and that mixing products with medications deserves a pharmacist’s review.

Where Ultra Bann Fits

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Frequently Asked Questions

How can I be more creative fast?

Take a 10 to 20 minute walk with one open question in mind and record every idea without judging it. In Stanford’s experiments, walking raised idea generation within the same session, including on a treadmill indoors.^[1]

Does walking really boost creativity?

For generating ideas, yes, in controlled experiments. Walkers produced more novel, appropriate ideas than people sitting, but walking did not improve focused problems with a single correct answer.^[1]

Why do good ideas come in the shower?

Showers are a classic undemanding activity. Research on incubation found that an easy task that lets the mind wander improved creative performance on problems people had already worked on, more than rest or a demanding task.^[2]

Does sleep affect creativity?

Short sleep reduces attention and concentration,^[4] and most REM sleep, which is linked to memory and brain connectivity, happens in the second half of the night.^[5] Cutting sleep short works against both phases of creative work.

Can a supplement make me more creative?

No supplement has the kind of evidence that walking, smart breaks and sleep have for creativity. Start with the habits, and if you feel persistently flat or unmotivated, see a clinician instead of reaching for a pill.

References

1. Stanford Report (April 2014). Report on walking and creative thinking research by Oppezzo M and Schwartz D, published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. news.stanford.edu
2. Baird B, Smallwood J, Mrazek MD, Kam JWY, Franklin MS, Schooler JW. Inspired by Distraction: Mind Wandering Facilitates Creative Incubation. Psychological Science. 2012;23(10):1117 to 1122. journals.sagepub.com
3. Atchley RA, Strayer DL, Atchley P. Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings. PLOS ONE. 2012. journals.plos.org
4. Harvard Health Publishing. Sharpen thinking skills with a better night’s sleep. health.harvard.edu
5. Sleep Foundation. REM sleep (stages of sleep). sleepfoundation.org
6. National Institute of Mental Health. Men and Depression. nimh.nih.gov

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. This article is for information only and is not medical advice.