Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The Magic of Showers Or; The Shower and The Artist

It's a pretty well-established fact, that a lot of people get their best ideas in the shower. 

It's true for me.  Maybe not the best, but certainly an awful lot of good ones.

Dopamine is part of the reason, no doubt.  Anytime you can get a good dopamine shower, you'll be happier all around, and nice hot H2O showers tend to trigger the release of dopamine.

Additionally, they say (you know, 'them') negative ions have an effect on us.  They show up wherever there's water and attach to things like dust particles and negative ruminations about why multi-billionaire dollar international hedge funds can get away with a multitude of nefarious, self-serving crimes, while you can't go five miles over the speed limit to get your cat to the vet before she has her kittens in your lap and get away with it.  (You ruminate on this stuff too, right??) 

The ions drag attach to all this and drag it down, down to the ground, leaving the air fresher and your mind more capable of handling barking dogs and multi-billionaire dollar hedge fund managers and all the other impurities life slings your way.

And of course, for many moms, showers are The One And Only place we can get five minutes alone.

Sort of alone.  It's good enough.  This is powerful stuff, people.  Wet Alone Time matters.

But the real reason showers work is probably far more mundane, and far more important.  We're stationary.  We're reflective.  We're quiet.  We're not inundating our brains and senses with stuff.  Shiny, Bright, Sparkling, Noisy, OMG Look At This Funny Cat! stuff. 

There are no new ideas bombarding us in the shower, which is why you can get so many new ideas in the shower.

Reflective time matters.  Wandering minds matter.  A lot.  But we're so often plugged in and turned on, getting 'input' by bad music and good music and bad news and good news and other people's ideas about how to feel and think and be with it all.  There's always some heartbreaking new tragedy and some inspiring new triumph and it's just exhausting if you slow down and actually notice it all. 

Which we generally don't.  More often we run through it all, like a kid with a bubble wand.


But in the shower, there's nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Just you and your mind.  Your quiet mind and your wet body.  And the ions, of course.

So for me, shower time is pretty sacred.  No technology, no kids, just me and the ions.  And all those ideas.....

Do you get ideas in the shower?  Or is somewhere/something/someone else your idea incubator?