Research Shows 72% of People Have New Ideas in the Shower

It’s not always easy to get those creative juices flowing – especially on the first Monday back from winter vacation.

Maybe your New Year’s resolution was even to tap into that right side of the brain a little more than you have been.

From music to exercise, there are many things you can do to stimulate creativity – and we’ve told you all about them in the past. But one thing may be more superior to the rest, and it’s something you do daily: a shower. In a new book Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman and HuffPost Senior Writer Carolyn Gregoire explain the origin of some of your most creative moments.

In collaboration with showerhead supplier Hansgrohe (rather conveniently), Kaufman found that 72 percent of people globally get their best ideas in the shower. According to Kaufman, this is because a nice long shower frees your mind from critical thought and allows it to wander and roam free through new perspectives and necessary distractions, opening up your mind to new ideas.

“A shower is also, quite literally, a place of incubation—a change of scenery from the rest of our everyday lives that’s relatively free of stimulation and distractions,” said the authors, as reported by Details. “Showering insulates us from the external world so that we can focus all of our attention on our inner desires, daydreams, and memories—thereby increasing the likelihood that our mind will come up with creative connections.”

Of course, this research isn’t necessarily ground shattering. The creative benefits from showering have been documented for some time now. It’s safe to say that a shower does a lot more than clean and wake you up.

Just try not to forget those great ideas once the steam clears.