I’ve been in a bit of a creative rut lately. I’ve also been meaning to go camping for a while now. Could the two be related?

Yes, say psychologists in a new study. David Strayer (University of Utah), Ruth Ann Atchley (University of Kansas), and Paul Atchley (University of Kansas) found that backpackers scored 50 percent better on a creativity test after spending four days in nature disconnected from electronic devices.

“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. “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 results aren’t surprising.

“Writers for centuries have talked about why interacting with nature is important, and lots of people go on vacations,” Strayer said. “But I don’t think we know very well what the benefits are from a scientific perspective.”

According to the study published December 12 in PLOS ONE, an online journal published by the Public Library of Science:

The study involved 56 people – 30 men and 26 women – with an average age of 28. They participated in four- to six-day wilderness hiking trips organized by the Outward Bound expedition school in Alaska, Colorado, Maine and Washington state. No electronic devices were allowed on the trips.

Of the 56 study subjects, 24 took a 10-item creativity test the morning before they began their backpacking trip, and 32 took the test on the morning of the trip’s fourth day.

The results: people who had been backpacking four days got an average of 6.08 of the 10 questions correct, compared with an average score of 4.14 for people who had not yet begun a backpacking trip.

“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 said.

The researchers caution that the study wasn’t conducted to “determine if the effects are due to an increased exposure to nature, a decreased exposure to technology or the combined influence of these two factors.”

“It’s equally plausible that it is not multitasking to wits’ end that is associated with the benefits,” Strayer said.

Yeah, maybe it’s about time I book that camping trip and recharge my creativity.

(Story materials from the University of Utah. Image via Flickr: Perfectance / Creative Commons.)