The New York Post reports that when entrepreneur Jennifer Walsh needs to meet up with an employee or fellow business owner, she heads to Central Park. After years of holing up in boardrooms and coffee shops, Walsh now takes her meetings on her feet — a move favored by President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and countless Aaron Sorkin TV-show characters.
A small study from the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease in June, found that changing one traditional meeting each week to a walking meeting increases employees’ physical activity levels by 10 minutes. (The Department of Health and Human Services recommends 150 minutes of exercise per week.)
A 2014 study out of Stanford University found that walking had a significant, positive effect on creativity. Walsh likes the way walking meetings nix the stiffness of a traditional meeting. “When you’re sitting in a meeting, one person leads, and then the other person has to interject,” she says. “In a walking meeting, it’s more like a brain dump. It’s just a constant flow.” To read the article in its entirety, click here.