Grooving, moving, and stretching out of the box! The role of recovery experiences in the relation between physical activity and creativity

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment and relaxation) in the relation between physical activity and creativity, operationalized through divergent thinking using a randomized controlled trial experiment with 155 graduate business management students. The treatment group performed 20-min of either dance or Hatha yoga, while the control group performed a sedentary case-study task. The originality component of divergent thinking was measured before and after the interventions, and the recovery experience after the intervention. The results show that dance significantly improves originality vis-à-vis case-study. Psychological detachment mediates this relationship. Implications of results on ego-depletion theory and the concept of recovery experience are discussed.