You may have heard the term “shower thoughts”. This concept is defined as a synonym for crazy but interesting ideas that only come up while showering. The mind seems to enter a different, more creative state while calmly showering and finding solutions to questions you never thought of before. But why we always experience this realization in the shower is an intriguing question. That’s why the question of why the best ideas come during the shower has been on the agenda for a long time. Researchers from Virginian University think they’ve finally found the answer to that question.
Why Do the Best Ideas Come During the Shower?
In a new study, Zac Irving and colleagues said the secret to unlocking this enhanced creativity is to do a moderately engaging task; In this case, that task is taking a shower. So a task that is neither so trivial as to completely disable the brain, nor too difficult to take up too much processing space. When you take a shower, the brain is still busy and moderately active, but can still ponder over other problems. Irving thinks this answer explains why going for a walk helps with this, too.
“Imagine you’re stuck with a problem,” Irving said in a statement. “What do you do? You probably wouldn’t do something unbelievably boring like watching paint dry. Instead, do something to keep yourself busy like going for a walk, doing gardening, or taking a shower. You do something. All these activities are moderately occupied activities.”
Looking at the evidence available to support the hypothesis, there are many anecdotes where nearly everyone at some point says they took a walk to clear their heads.
Researchers conducted an experiment to prove this situation. Participants were asked to come up with an innovative new use for a brick or paper clip. In doing so, they had participants watch different videos, including a video of folding laundry (which is pretty boring) or a clip from When Harry Met Sally, where Meg Ryan shows how to orgasm in a crowded restaurant (more interesting).
“What we really wanted to know wasn’t which video helped you be more creative,” Irving said. “The question was how reasoning relates to creativity during boring and engaging tasks.”
Participants were asked for their opinions immediately after the video. They discovered that as the brain thought more, significantly more ideas developed. However, this idea boost only occurred when the task was moderately interesting, not while watching the boring video.
Basically, these results show that doing something that engages the brain a bit is more creatively beneficial, as opposed to something you’re not interested in at all.
The researchers now hope to increase the number of situations and expand the results by simply moving away from videos and using virtual reality to know the best mind-wandering level for creativity.
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