Have you ever been struck with a genius idea in the middle of showering? Or chanced upon a random, extremely satisfying insight? Or entered a deep train of thought about your own life? Your answer is probably “yes” for almost every shower you’ve taken, or at least for those hot, cozy, long showers. Don’t worry—you are not alone, because everyone seems to experience this. In fact, this phenomenon has recently been coined as “shower thoughts” definitely check out the “showerthoughts” subreddit because our brains are really out here wildin’ in the shower).
For me, it’s impossible to not have some form of internal reflection while showering; and if not internal reflection, then some weird gut feeling about the future. Last winter, I texted my friend, “Bro, I have a weird feeling that once I get out of the shower (bc I’m texting you mid-shower) our o-chem grades will be out, we are both failing.” After drying my hair, I checked my phone to see a missed call from my friend and a text saying, “WHAT IN THE WITCHCRAFT, WE FAILED!!!!”
Me predicting the failing grade was a source of much-needed comedic relief, as we were more fixated on my clairvoyance rather than the fact that we failed. I concluded that I’d probably have gotten prosecuted as part of the Salem Witch Trials if this had happened in the Middle Ages. But to avoid tooting my own horn, we are going to say that this was probably just my high-functioning anxiety manifesting itself as ✨insights about the future.✨
Some of my shower thoughts also include figuring out what a perfect response would have been to specific past conversations, or figuring out the answer to an exam question that I couldn’t solve during the exam itself. It’s like, why didn’t my brain do its job when it needed to?!!
Obviously, this led me to do some research on why we have these fleeting moments of creative genius during a task as menial and mundane as showering. According to this Buffer article, one study tracked the regions of the brain that were active when rappers did freestyle, which we can all agree is a highly creative process. The part of their brain that controls executive function (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) was relaxed, and the part that helps us make associations and understand context and emotional response (medial prefrontal cortex) was active.
However, this still didn’t answer my question about creative shower thoughts. Most research has concluded that creativity requires a positive mood, and it turns out that when we start to lather up, we really do wash away our worries as our brain releases dopamine. Showers aren’t a mentally or physically taxing activity, and the warm water hitting you is the perfect way for your brain to recover from the deep fried state caused by our rise-and-grind lifestyles. Essentially, you need to let your mind wander so it can look inward to make connections and associations, and you cannot do that if you have an explicit task in mind.