the results? “our studies show that fluency and flexibility scores in a divergent thinking task are higher during unrestricted movement than during unrestricted movement,” they found. this went beyond previously-established information about restricted vs. unrestricted walking, and found that even people sitting the way they wanted to made a difference.
in other words, “if subjects are forced to move in a controlled fashion, they will not profit from it,” they wrote.
but there are much smaller movements that can improve divergent thinking, too, like blinking. one specific kind of eye movement — s
pontaneous blinking, which is different from the reflexive blinking people do if, for instance, there’s wind or smoke near their eyes — also appears to be linked. while the researchers didn’t succeed at proving a relationship between blinking and divergent thinking, they said they’d like to see more research in this area.
stop staring at your phone
perhaps unsurprisingly, spending all day looking at our phones and computers aren’t great for our divergent thinking because, according to händel, it forces our movement into restrictive patterns.
this has significant impact on students, the study says, “since most online teaching involves fixating on a computer screen, the amount of free body movements, including head and eye movements, are greatly reduced compared to a normal classroom set up.”