According to a study by psychologists from the University of Utah and University of Kansas, after four days spent disconnected from electronics and living in nature, backpackers scored 50 percent better on a creativity test, reports Medical Xpress.
David Strayer, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at the University of Utah said connection with nature has its own benefits.
"This is a way of showing that interacting with nature has real, measurable benefits to creative problem-solving that really hadn't been formally demonstrated before," Strayer said in a report by Medical Xpress. "It provides a rationale for trying to understand what is a healthy way to interact in the world, and that burying yourself in front of a computer 24/7 may have costs that can be remediated by taking a hike in nature."
The study involved 56 people, 30 men and 26 women, with an average age of 28, who were asked to go on a 4-6 days hiking trip without any electronic devices. The study was organized by Outward Bound expedition school in Alaska, Colorado, Maine and Washington state.
Before the backpacking trip, 24 people were asked to give a creativity test and the remaining 32 took the test on the fourth day of the trip. The results were surprisingly effective as the team that took the test before leaving on the trip scored an average of 4.14 out of 10 questions and the ones who took the test on the fourth day of the trip scored an average of 6.08, according to Medical Xpress.
"We show that four days of immersion in nature, and the corresponding disconnection from multimedia and technology, increases performance on a creativity, problem-solving task by a full 50 percent," the researchers conclude.
It was unclear whether the results were impacted "due to an increased exposure to nature, a decreased exposure to technology or the combined influence of these two factors."
The study by Strayer and University of Kansas psychologists Ruth Ann Atchley and Paul Atchley was proposed to be published in the Dec. 12 edition of PLOS ONE, an online journal published by the Public Library of Science.
