May 8, 2009 -- The next time you're facing a challenge, you might not want to stand your ground. Maybe you should try walking backward instead, Dutch researchers suggest.

"Whenever you encounter a difficult situation, stepping backward may boost your capability to deal with it effectively," Severine Koch, PhD, and colleagues write in May's edition of Psychological Science.

The researchers reasoned that the body and mind are on higher alert when they're in avoidance mode. So they put that theory to the test by studying 38 students at Radboud University Nijmegen.

Based on the reaction time advantage, Koch and colleagues write that "backward locomotion appears to be a very powerful trigger to mobilize cognitive resource."