Increased productivity is a known benefit of using a walking desk. Extra productivity is great when you need to churn out a bunch of e-mails, review documents, or get through the more mundane tasks on your to-do list. But what about when you need to get those creative juices flowing for your work projects? Can using a walking desk help you be more creative or should you pull up a chair?

A study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that walking significantly improves creative ability, whether that walking is outside or inside. Researchers from Stanford and Santa Clara University tested multiple situations to see how much more creative one could be while walking and completing a complex test verses those sitting while taking the same test.

Walking produced substantially better results in each test segment in the study. On average, the participants saw approximately 60% boost in their creativity just from walking. A staggering 88% of participants who walked at a treadmill desk were more creative walking rather than sitting.

The authors of the research concluded:

Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity.

This is great news for walking desk users everywhere. Not only are they more productive when using their walking desks, they’re also producing more creative work. This study can be added to the long list on how you can convince your boss into getting walking desks for employees!