7 Ways Running Makes You More Creative

I recently read an arti­cle about the com­mon traits of highly cre­ative peo­ple. I was struck by how sim­i­lar these traits are to those of run­ners. I then real­ized that this is not just a coin­ci­dence. Run­ning pro­vides a num­ber of  ben­e­fits to one’s over­all emo­tional and phys­i­cal well being.  It’s no secret that run­ning releases endor­phins, the bod­ies “happy pills,” into the sys­tem. How­ever, besides increas­ing our phys­i­cal activ­ity, run­ning also pro­vides us with per­sonal chal­lenges we have to fig­ure out how to over­come, for exam­ple. Cre­ativ­ity is deeply depen­dent on our emo­tional, men­tal, and phys­i­cal well being. Run­ning requires us to engage men­tally, emo­tion­ally, and physically.

Let’s take a closer look at the traits of highly cre­ative peo­ple and how run­ning tends to pro­mote their development:

Highly cre­ative people:

1. Like to PLAY, since humor and fun are the ulti­mate cre­ative act. Get­ting out and let­ting your­self run freely is an incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence, and one that is at the heart of a good run­ning rou­tine. Many peo­ple report with delight how their stress melts away with every stride and that they return after their run in a much more light-hearted mood.
2. Are EXPRESSIVE and will­ing to share what they feel and think, to be them­selves. Some run­ners do spend a lot of time focused on how other peo­ple run and even live their lives. How­ever, most run­ners find them­selves being more in touch with who they are by run­ning. At the risk of sound­ing like a new age preacher, through run­ning, peo­ple become more com­fort­able in their own skin and start to live the life that res­onates with their inner self.
3. Have the COURAGE to try new things and risk fail­ure. While run­ning is one of the most nat­ural things a body can do, it’s often quite an effort to run after all that we have done to our bod­ies over the years. Con­tin­u­ing to get out there day in and day out takes a lot of courage, as does get­ting back out after fail­ure and injury.
4. Use INTUITION as well as logic. Every run­ner knows that run­ning is as much men­tal as it is kines­thetic. The best run­ners are in touch with their body and know when to push them­selves fur­ther and when to ease off to avoid injury.
5. Have a need to FIND SOLUTIONS to chal­leng­ing prob­lems. Some­times it feels like there’s a new chal­lenge with every run! It seems that run­ning is built out of chal­lenges to over­come. Whether it be good chal­lenges, like increas­ing dis­tance or speed, or bad chal­lenges, such as get­ting over an injury, there are all sorts of chal­lenges to try and solve when you run. It might even be that with­out such chal­lenges, we would never dis­cover our full poten­tial as a runner.
6. Will CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS and ask hard ques­tions to dis­cover what is real. There are a num­ber of new learn­ings and dis­cov­er­ies that chal­lenge the very assump­tions we base our run­ning pro­grams on. Ideas like those out­lined in Born to Run force us to ques­tion some of the biggest assump­tions of run­ning. The best run­ners not only like to chal­lenge assump­tions, they are dri­ven to find new knowl­edge that will change their per­spec­tives and make them bet­ter runners.
7. Will PUSH THE ENVELOPE in order to expand the bound­aries of what’s pos­si­ble. Run­ning is all about mak­ing the body and mind to do more. New world records and per­sonal records alike drive us to  make our per­for­mance a lit­tle bet­ter today than it was yes­ter­day. The def­i­n­i­tion for what’s humanly pos­si­ble is being rede­fined by run­ners around the world every day.

Tak­ing a closer look at some of the traits of very cre­ative peo­ple seems to indi­cate that run­ning will not only make us health­ier peo­ple, it will also make us more cre­ative people.

Adapted from arti­cle Do You Have These Traits of Highly Cre­ative Peo­ple? Note that I left some traits that seemed redun­dant out (plus seven is at the limit of what we can remem­ber, any way).

What do you think?

Have your expe­ri­ences with run­ning been similar?