Why the best decisions rarely happen sitting still

You've been in back-to-back calls since 8am, and in twenty minutes you need to make the call that decides the quarter. The instinct is to stay at the desk and think harder. The evidence suggests there may be a better option: get up first.

Movement and cognition are tied together more tightly than most working days allow for. Nicolaas Pronk, president and chief science officer at HealthPartners Institute, has described this tension as the "sedentary-cognitive paradox": as the mental demands of modern work rise, screens, long meetings and constant connectivity have quietly engineered movement out of the working day (Pronk, 2025).

The irony is that some of the brain functions we rely on most at work, including attention, inhibition and creative thinking, appear to respond positively to short bouts of physical activity.

What the evidence actually shows

You do not necessarily need a full workout to see a cognitive effect.

A 2025 scoping review of 52 studies examining acute exercise and executive function found that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, typically lasting between 16 and 35 minutes, was associated with improvements in aspects of executive function, particularly inhibitory control. Changes were also seen in event-related potentials, electrical measures of how the brain processes information. Some benefits persisted for approximately 30 minutes after exercise (Cai et al., 2025).

A separate systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis pooled 651 effect sizes from 113 studies involving 4,390 young adults. Acute physical activity produced a small but meaningful overall improvement in cognition, including faster reaction times, with benefits generally stronger when cognition was tested after exercise rather than during it. Shorter bouts of less than 30 minutes tended to produce larger effects, while cycling and high-intensity interval exercise showed some of the most consistent benefits (Garrett et al., 2024).

That short window is practically interesting. It suggests that movement shortly before a cognitively demanding task may temporarily change the mental resources available to you, rather than cognitive benefits depending entirely on long-term fitness.

Movement may change the type of thinking too

One of the clearest findings comes from creativity research.

In a series of Stanford experiments, participants asked to generate creative uses for everyday objects produced significantly more creative responses while walking than while sitting. Importantly, some of that effect remained when they sat down immediately afterwards (Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014).

But walking did not improve every type of thinking.

The researchers found no equivalent advantage for convergent thinking, where the task requires one correct answer. In some experiments, performance was slightly worse.

That distinction matters at work.

A walking meeting may be particularly useful when the question is "What could we do?", where you need ideas, alternatives and reframing. It may be less useful for work demanding precise, convergent analysis, such as checking detailed financial figures or reviewing the wording of a contract.

Why this matters for leaders

For a founder or leader, even a small temporary shift in attention, inhibition or creative thinking could matter when it coincides with a negotiation, strategy session or pitch.

The research does not show that going for a walk automatically produces better business decisions, higher revenues or better negotiations. What it does suggest is that the cognitive state in which we approach demanding work is modifiable.

That is a useful distinction.

Most people treat movement as something that happens before work, after work or when the diary finally allows it. The emerging evidence suggests there may also be value in thinking of movement as part of the working day itself.

Putting the research to work

1. Move before something cognitively demanding. Around 15 to 30 minutes of moderate aerobic movement before a pitch, negotiation or strategy session is broadly consistent with the exercise durations associated with short-term cognitive benefits in the research (Cai et al., 2025).
2. Take a thinking meeting on foot. Reserve walking meetings for open questions, strategy, brainstorming and problem reframing, where divergent thinking is useful (Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014).
3. Do not dismiss a short session. In Garrett et al.'s analysis, exercise bouts lasting less than 30 minutes showed larger cognitive effects than longer sessions, while vigorous activities including cycling and HIIT produced some of the most consistent results (Garrett et al., 2024).
4. Match the movement to the task. Walking appears particularly useful for generating possibilities. When the work requires precision, detailed analysis or one correct answer, sitting back down may still be the better option.
5. Treat movement as part of the meeting schedule. Pronk's sedentary-cognitive paradox highlights an uncomfortable feature of modern knowledge work: we increasingly demand high cognitive performance while designing working days that minimise physical movement (Pronk, 2025). Creating deliberate space to move between cognitively demanding tasks may help counter that pattern.

You don’t need to overhaul your day to change how you think within it. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is leave the desk, move your body and come back with a different brain.

References:

Cai, Z., Shi, L., Wu, W., Meng, L., Ru, Y., & Wu, M. (2025). A scoping review of effects of acute exercise on executive function: Evidence from event-related potentials. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1599861.

Garrett, J., Chak, C., Bullock, T., & Giesbrecht, B. (2024). A systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis provide evidence for an effect of acute physical activity on cognition in young adults. Communications Psychology, 2, 82.

Oppezzo, M., & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(4), 1142–1152.

Pronk, N. P. (2025). The sedentary-cognitive paradox at work: Movement as a strategic business imperative for brain fitness. The Journal of Aging Research & Lifestyle, 15, 100054.