Stuck For Ideas? Take A Long, Hot Shower.

graphic © eminentlyquotable.com

“Stuck for ideas? Take a long, hot shower. (If you don’t get any new ideas, at least you’ll be clean.)

Having a long, hot shower after a day’s work is a modern man’s—and women’s—quickest form of relaxation. The few minutes spent in a hot shower has been proven to relieve muscle tension while killing bacteria in the skin and hair. It’s a stress-buster that most people do after a menial task.

But for some people, the creative ones, a hot shower helps them unleash the creativity they need. A long, hot shower is good for the brain. It allows the brain to wander in a cool, calming atmosphere. Since taking a shower is an unconscious task, the brain gets a chance to breathe and stretch its creative muscles. Neuroscientists believed that the more relaxed the brain’s executive functions are, the less it restricts the brain from its creative processes.

Scientists have identified two forces in brain: logic and creativity. Logic seeks to understand while creativity questions the brain’s understanding of things. Creativity is said to be less practiced because of the frequency of logic-based tasks in everyday life. According to studies on creativity, detachment to reality is required for one’s creativity to overpower the more potent force which is logic.

The word “Eureka” which translates to “I have found it” is attributed to Archimedes, an ancient Greek scholar who discovered the solution to a mathematical problem while taking a bath. Most significant discoveries happen at a Eureka moment—a moment of “idleness” where the discoverer is not focused on the problem.

To quote Ray Bradbury: “Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”