She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Vyesum Nil Grahckt - 2013 by secretworkings , Acrylic on Canvas

Mirach - automatic drawing with pencil, enchanced with pen and watercolor washes.

Trying my hands on automatic drawing evocation using thomas chaote’s Mirach sigil.

SIGILS - RORSCHACH INKBLOT STYLE

I read on a forum somewhere on using inkblots as a strategic way to make sigils. Just construct the basic sigil using your own method then get some ink, trace it on paper and fold. Voila. Instant inkblot sigil.

I also found a new way of charging which is less messy that the usual method (you know what I’m talking about). 

Just gaze at the sigil (works best with black/red ink) in a meditative state. After a while, close your eyes and you will see the after-image of the inkblot. Try to focus and maintain attention on the image, until it disappears. You could even go to the extreme of using the death posture as you do this. This was inspired by working with the tattwas in clairvoyance practice by the GD. 

Another cool idea is also to create a bunch of sigils on separate pieces of paper and then fold them up. While they are still folded, mix them up. This way you really wouldn’t know which sigil is which since the pattern you make on the inkblot is unpredictable. Chaos inkblots indeed.

You are not alone sir! I also have experienced this. I think a number of people have mentioned this experience already.

The reason behind this? No one really knows. (some claim to, but, let’s all be honest here ok). Magic in general is not a science or a system that can be explained like 1, 2, 3. That’s why it’s magic and not science.

Anyway, my own personal theory, is that when you start making the sigil….from that first moment you write or even think of that intent, cross out those silly letters, and draw out your glyph and all that shenanigans, you are actually kinda entering that altered state which is suitable for ‘charging’ your sigils. 

From the first moment of stating your desire, you already send out this intent to the universe/macrocosm and the universe starts fulfilling it already. That magical ball has started rolling.

That so called act of ‘charging’, to me is more of a finale act vs. the act of magic itself. The act of magic itself, I believe, has started from the moment you held that first thought in your head and started reaching for that pen to draw your sigil. Everything is a follow through.