In Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed series, The West Wing, there was a recurring plot device. Characters, when faced with a thorny problem, often went for a walk and talked it out. The camera would capture it all in a long tracking shot.

Sorkin, who penned most of these scenes, used them to highlight the frenetic energy and pace of the White House. The characters exchanged rapid-fire, Sorkinesque dialogue while moving through spaces crammed with busy people buzzing in the background. The technique was – at the same time – both expository and transitional. It would move the story from location to location, often introduce additional characters as they joined the walk, then would veer off to do something important while it also furthered the story line with new details. It was the physical embodiment of multi-tasking, adding urgency to the pace, “There is so much to do and so little time to do it in.”

While Aaron Sorkin might not have intended it, there is also some solid neuroscience backing up the practice of walking and talking. And, as it turns out, you don’t even need to be walking with someone else to realize the cognitive benefits of a good stroll around the block.

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Nietzche seemed to be on to something. To come up with something new, the brain must do two different types of thinking: divergent and convergent. Divergent thinking could be defined as “thinking outside of the box.” Convergent thinking would be gathering up all those divergent thoughts and stuffing them “back in the box” to analyze the best option. According to a 2014 study from Stanford University, walking gives a significantly positive boost to divergent thinking but is less effective with convergent thinking.

Walking appears to open up the brain to new ideas. There is a positive “mind-body” effect that comes from just being active while you’re thinking, but walking also puts you in a different environment with varying stimuli. In the Stanford experiment, some participants walked outside and some just walked on a treadmill. Those that were outside realized the greatest creative boosts. 

But what if you’re walking with someone else? That’s where the benefits of walking really kick into high gear for certain kinds of brain activities. First of all, both the walkers are benefiting from the creative boost that walking gives you. But it also appears that walking allows you to connect with your fellow walker on both a physical and psychological level that operates at the subconscious level. 

Another study (Cheng, Kato, Saunders, Tseng, 2020) found that walkers soon synchronize their walking and this creates a physical bond between them. Those that walked together each evaluated the other person more highly after the walk than those that simply sat in the same room together. And, in case you’re wondering, the two didn’t even need to talk to each other. In the case of this study, both walkers were specifically instructed to stay silent during their walk.

That’s the “walk” part. But what about the “talk” part? As it turns out, walking brings its own benefits to that as well, and it’s not just the multi-tasking saving of time that Aaron Sorkin showed in the West Wing. 

Think about where you’re looking when you walk. The person you’re walking with is beside you but you’re looking ahead. You’re not looking them in the eye. For some types of communication, eye-to-eye might be the optimal mode, but for divergent thinking, this combination of being physically “in step” with the other person but also being free to let your eyes and mind wander a bit, enticed by what’s happening around you, turns out to be a very effective creative incubator. Your flow of fresh thoughts are not restricted by picking up negative micro-expressions from the other person. You’re not picking up any body language that may cause you to repress any creative ideas for fear of rejection. Soon, you’ll start to riff off each other’s ideas, adding to the idea generation process. 

There’s one more thing about walking. If you do need to just think for a while to process a new idea, those silences are a lot less awkward if you’re walking than if you’re across from each other at a boardroom table.