British Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol 31, Issue 3 240-245, Copyright © 1997 by British Association of Sport and Medicine
Exercise enhances creativity independently of mood
H Steinberg, EA Sykes, T Moss, S Lowery, N LeBoutillier and A Dewey
School of Psychology, Middlesex University, United Kingdom.
OBJECTIVES: It has been widely accepted in the literature that various
forms of physical exercise, even in a single session, enhance positive
mood. It has also been shown that physical exercise may sometimes enhance
creative thinking, but the evidence is inconclusive. Positive moods can
favour creative thinking, but the opposite has also been reported and these
relations are unclear. There is a large anecdotal literature suggesting
that creative people sometimes use bodily movement to help overcome
"blocks". The aim of this study was to establish whether post-exercise
creative thinking was attributable to improved mood. METHODS: The responses
of 63 participants to an exercise (aerobic workout or aerobic dance) and a
"neutral" video watching condition were compared. Mood was measured using
an adjective list, and creative thinking was tested by three measures of
the Torrance test. RESULTS: Analysis of variance showed a large and
significant increase in positive mood after exercise (P < 0.001) and a
significant decrease in positive mood after video watching (P < 0.001).
A significant increase between the creative thinking scores of the two
conditions was found on the flexibility (variety of responses) measure (P
< 0.05). A multifactorial analysis of all data failed to show a
significant covariance of creative thinking with the two measures of mood
(P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that mood and creativity
were improved by physical exercise independently of each other.
