Summary: Routine actions such as shower, walking, water the head and allow the head does not commit us to roam and find new solutions as in sleep

You are there intentions to inflate the foam shampoo when, suddenly, a revelation: the solution to a problem that has long tormented comes to mind as if it had always been there.

How often it does? More than you think, and hot water and soap are not concerned. The shower creates the perfect conditions for what scientists call eureka moments (realizations, sudden inspiration), but it is not the only activity in which to dedicate if you feel the need for a brilliant idea.

Take another. For scientists, these creative epiphanies tend to occur when we are engaged in automatic pastimes that do not require great mental effort: wash, of course, but also walk, run, catch, treat the plants. These activities allow the brain to function on autopilot, and the unconscious to launch free association of ideas, for once not inhibited by rational thoughts.

New points of view. We are entering a "daydream" mode that relaxes the prefrontal cortex - the decision-making center of the brain - and activates the mode network default: a neural network present in several brain regions that works when we are engaged in passive activities, rest . You clean up the "beaten" paths between brain regions and makes room for new connections at that moment we open to new associations that the rational mind usually tends to exclude all this, while we massage your hair!

Happy Island. Also, in the shower we are not distracted from your smartphone or from homework "to do", that force the brain to think in a linear fashion. Ideas free flowing stumble against other ideas ... and intuition comes. And the fact that you came in the shower does not make it less value.

Trust the intuition. Scientific research shows that for some types of problems, solutions that look suddenly are often more accurate than long elucubrate.

Carola Salvi and John Kounios, Northwestern and Drexel University (USA) have shown that for certain puns sudden insights were correct in 94% of cases, analytical solutions, you will find step by step, only 78% of the time.

From Focus