One of the greatest satisfactions in life we get to experience is the act of taking a shower. Whether it be the much-needed wake-up call as part of the morning routine, a long-awaited celebration at the end of a busy day, or even a salvation ritual we so desperately want to perform after being completely soaked on a rainy day. The refreshing feeling, together with a hygienic sensation, just always hit the spot. Having said that, there is a benefit of shower that is greatly underappreciated, that is, how it potentially has the power to set thoughts free and make us flourish in ideas.

The complex machine that is our brain

The human brain is one of the most complicated objects that we know of in the universe. With billions upon billions of neurons (fun fact: just “around” the orders of magnitude to the number of stars in the galaxy), the brain harbours a complex system of neural networks that serves as the conductor of thought, the transmitter of feeling, and the architect of decision-making.

A somewhat perpetual machine, the brain is in constant activity (i.e., from birth until moments before death). Even during sleep, when our body is inactive in terms of physical work, the brain “stays” awake and exhibits dynamic activity as it undergoes the process of processing new information and converting it into long-term memory.

The Default Mode Network (DMN)

The Default Mode Network (DMN), or sometimes simply Default Mode (DM), refers to a specific interconnect group of brain regions that is hypothesised as a functioning network during brain activity. The concept of DMN was first introduced when researchers observed a significantly high level of brain activity in experimental participants who were just quietly resting without any cognitive task. In other words, the areas of the brain characterised by DMN display a higher level of activity when we are not engaged in any specific mental activity, as opposed to a lower level of activity when we are actively focusing on a particular task.

While the name “Default” Mode Network highlights the lack of externally directed (i.e., no active interaction with the outside world) and goal-oriented activity, it is perhaps misleading to some extent. The state of “focuslessness” does not only refer to when one is at rest per se, but rather, this passive state of mind, that is, a mode of thinking without an explicit goal, also occurs when we daydream and are not actively working on a problem. In essence, when we simply let the mind wander.

Creative thinking and the Default Mode Network (DMN)

According to a Nature paper in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers found that there is a casual link between creative thinking and the Default Mode Network (DMN). The network is associated with generating ideas, drawing on experience and knowledge. “When you’re not actively working on a problem, the brain keeps spinning and you can get restructuring of elements of the problem, pieces get reshuffled, and something clicks. The DMN helps you combine information in different ways and simulate possibilities,” explains Roger Beaty, a cognitive neuroscientist and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab at Penn State University.

Stepping into showers

Going back to the topic of this blog’s opening – the shower. Perhaps, it is the DMN at work. This “focuslessness” aspect of mind state that explains why taking a shower can give us a boost of ideas.

When we step into the shower room and close the door behind us, we symbolically enter a closed space, a sort of mental safe space that shields our consciousness from the outside world and all distractions that come with it. In the following act of opening the water tap, rinsing our body, putting on shampoo/body wash, etc. As labour-intensive as they may seem, these tasks are already routines we’ve carried out so many times that we don’t even think about “doing” them anymore. Our body basically enters an autopilot mode during the shower, and then, before we are even aware of it, our minds start slowly drifting away from reality and begin to roam freely. That’s when we might come up with a creative solution to a problem we are hard stuck on, a previously unimaginative perspective to a philosophical debate, or an interesting idea for our next project.

In fact, that’s how this blog came about; the idea of the blog came to me in my glorious shower.

A break from the world

But is taking a shower the only way to experience such an epiphany of ideas? Absolutely not. Ultimately, it might just be that we need to take a break from the world from time to time. For some, it is taking a stroll around the park, listening to their favourite artist, or enjoying a nice homemade meal. For others, it might be trying a new sport, taking the sauna (see below), or something else entirely. But regardless of what it is that gives you a break, what matters is to allow your mind the space to breathe, reset, and wander – because sometimes, that’s when the best ideas find us.

To finish this blog on a nice song… Last weekend was the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 taking place in Basel, Switzerland. My personal favourite for this year’s Eurovision was the Swedish entry KAJ with their song “Bara Bada Bastu”, which happens to be a song about Sauna. It was simply genius, catchy and so Eurovision that I think even Eurovision doesn’t really know how to deal with it. You can enjoy this masterpiece performance below: