A couple of weekends ago, I had two major milestone moments: I completed my third half-marathon, and I was awarded Student Best of Show at the Fort Worth American Advertising Awards. I’ve also spent the last semester working on designing my senior thesis project, a run club focused on the holistic benefits of running, like mental health boosts and community building.
You could say that the intersection between running and creativity is where I thrive, and apparently, so does Harry Styles.
In the wake of Harry’s long-anticipated fourth album, there’s been lots of chatter about the pop star’s newfound love of running. In his hiatus from music, he was often spotted training for and competing in marathons across the globe. Runner’s World magazine interviewed Styles and fellow marathoner/creative Haruki Murakami before the drop of Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally. I happened to come across the interview last week at the same time as I was rereading my favorite memoir: Bravey, by Alexi Pappas, Olympic runner and filmmaker. These testimonies (and my personal life experience) hypothesize that the best compliment for any high-level creative pursuit is a consistent running practice. But after reading, I was curious: Is there a scientific link between making great art and running?
The SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS
The science appears to overwhelmingly support the idea that exercise, and specifically outdoor exercise, can improve creativity. A 2014 Stanford study found that “walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after.” Beyond the benefits of a single, isolated session of exercise, researchers in Austria also found in 2020 that “creativity … and everyday bodily movement were associated with each other.” This study found no difference between the benefits of indoor or outdoor activity, but three years later, another study found that immersion in nature also played a role, reporting that “outdoor exercise increases neuronal activity in brain regions related to creativity.”
THE HYPOTHESES
Why do we see these benefits? Well, it’s still unclear. One hypothesis from the Austrian scientists was that endorphins caused by exercise make us happier, and consequently, this positive mood makes us more open to creative ideas, but their data didn’t support their theory. Consistently active participants who reported less happiness still saw superior creativity compared to their less active counterparts. Cool, right?
An additional study from 2012 suggests that the boost may come instead from the disconnection from screens that results from outdoor exercise. Their research found that “immersion in nature, and the corresponding disconnection from multi-media and technology, increases performance on a creativity, problem-solving task by a full 50%.” I’m not sure about y’all, but I’d definitely buy this theory; we so rarely give ourselves time to think without the presence of a device in our hands, so it makes sense that we might acquire certain benefits simply from being forced to put our phone down when we go for a run.
A third theory is that running allows us to enter a meditative-like trance called a flow state. A flow is defined by Chief Science Officer at Flow Research Collective, Dr. Michael Mannino, as “a state of intense concentration that occurs during an activity that is just challenging enough for your level of skill — could also help you harness creativity.” Liane Gabora, an interdisciplinary psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, explains how: “Creative ideas often emerge through associative thinking…while you’re doing something else, the back burners of your brain — this default network — will still be active nonetheless. And that allows these ideas to percolate and come to the forefront.” Maybe this explains why all my best ideas have come to me in the shower?!
It is important to know that this is more effective if it is an intrinsically motivating activity; in other words, you have to enjoy jogging to be able to enter a flow state during a long run. Dr. Mannino expands on this idea, suggesting that “if you know that going for a challenging run can help you enter flow — and therefore, prime your brain to think creatively — you can use that mental state to really meditate on a problem you want to solve, or come up with a fresh idea.”
ART IMITATES LIFE A LONG RUN: ANALYZING HS4
Harry shares with Runner’s World magazine that running freed him from the archetype of the “tortured artist,” kept him healthy enough to create with intensity, allowed him a space to escape constant stimulation and scrutiny, provided a clear sense of structure and discipline, and offered a chance to meditate on the work he was creating. His anecdotal evidence suggests that the cause for the link between running and creativity is perhaps a mix of science’s best theories plus a little extra. When his new album, affectionately nicknamed “Kissco” by fans, came out, I started to believe that it might have never been created without the synergy of his running practice.
After listening to the album, I can definitely identify the distinctly meditative quality of the electronic beats and echoed choruses. It’s experimental and layered, and yet there’s a singularity to it that evokes the dichotomy of the individual yet communal experience that you might find in the club or while running a marathon. It’s loneliness without actually being alone. It’s momentary ecstasy amongst hardship. It relishes the romance of pain. It’s a flow state, in a way. It appears to me that Harry has not only created an album birthed from meditative long runs, but an album that is sort of an ode to them. His mind, y’all.
MY CONCLUSION
I have always described my running practice to others as a lifeline, joking that if I go too long without a run, I’ll go crazy. It’s often what I turn to first when I have chaos in my life or am stumped on a design project. However, I never thought of it as something that could enrich my creative pursuits. Through this lens, I’m realizing that when I am stepping away from my life or art to go for a run, I am engaging in this activity because I subconsciously know it will help me solve a problem. And, according to science, it will! I am so excited to intentionally take advantage of this tool in the future, and to my fellow runners and creatives out there, I encourage you to give it a try!