Back in 2022, I published a study on the Shower Effect. Specifically, our results suggested that moderately engaging activities like showering or walking lead to a form of mind-wandering that can facilitate creativity.

LUSH Cosmetics heard about the article approached me about designing a campaign together. LUSH’s product experts and I worked together on a three-part shower routine designed to invoke different types of spontaneous, wandering thoughts. This routine tackles an ancient philosophical problem––how to harness the wandering mind––that is more urgent now than ever, as our phones consume the hours we used to spend idly wandering.

I absolutely loved working on this campaign; it's the most enjoyable and philosophically-rich piece of public philosophy of my career. Part of the campaign was relatively traditional public academia: I wrote a public article about the value of mind-wandering (see below), and filmed interview-style documentary shorts about the ideas and campaigns.

Yet for me, the most philosophical part of the campaign was the most unusual: designing the routine. I've spent much of my adult life thinking about how to harness mind-wandering, in my scientific and philosophical work. Working with LUSH crystallized and advanced my thinking in a way that woudln't have been possible in the armchair or the lab. LUSH has thought deeply about how to evoke the kind of subtle emotions that may help us harness spontaneity: for example, a jolt that briefly interrupts rumination, relaxation to let your mind wander, or playful wonder that trigers distant associations.

I hope to study some of these effects, in my future forays back into the armchair and the lab. But for now, I can't get over the sense that shower bombs, gels, and charcoal exfoliators can be philosophical media in their own right.

Here is a list of the research that Lush and I drew on to make the power of the shower campaign.

The Shower Effect: Scientific Studies

These studies suggest that mind-wandering can facilitate creativity, especially during moderately engaging activities such as showering or taking a walk. These results are what inspired us to start working on the Power of the Shower campaign.

• Baird, B. et al. Inspired by distraction mind wandering facilitates creative incubation. Psychol. Sci. (2012).
• Irving, Z. C., McGrath, C., Flynn, L., Glasser, A. & Mills, C. The shower effect: Mind wandering facilitates creative incubation during moderately engaging activities. Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts (2022) doi:10.1037/aca0000516.
• Gable, S. L., Hopper, E. A. & Schooler, J. W. When the muses strike: Creative ideas of physicists and writers routinely occur during mind wandering. Psychol. Sci. 30, 396–404 (2019).

The Shower Effect: Scientific Theory

These papers develop scientific and philosophical theories about why mind-wandering (and taking a break more generally) might facilitate creativity. Like good science, our campaign was influenced not only by individual empirical studies but also by a broader understanding of the mechanisms that drive certain results.

• Christoff, K., Irving, Z. C., Fox, K. C., Spreng, R. N. & Andrews-Hanna, J. R. Mind-wandering as spontaneous thought: a dynamic framework. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 17, 718–731 (2016)
• Irving, Z. C. Drifting and directed minds: The significance of mind-wandering for mental action. J. Philos. 118, (2021).
• Mittner, M., Hawkins, G. E., Boekel, W. & Forstmann, B. U. A neural model of mind wandering. Trends Cogn. Sci. 20, 570–578 (2016).
• Sripada, C. An Exploration/Exploitation Tradeoff Between Mind Wandering and Task-Directed Thinking. in Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought and Creativity (eds. Fox, K. C. & Christoff, K.) (Oxford University Press, 2018).
• Wallas, G. The Art of Thought. (Johnathan Cape, 1926).
• Woolf, V. Moments of Being: Unpublished Autobiographical Writings. (Chatto and Windus for Sussex University Press, 1976).

Mind-Wandering on Purpose

These papers explain why intentional mind-wandering––letting your mind wander on purpose––is so puzzling. You’re trying to control the uncontrollable. This fact is a key motivation for the Power of the Shower campaign. Because you can’t just let your mind wander at will, most people need to use methods––such as taking a walk or a shower––to indirectly initiate and sustain mind-wandering.

• Arango-Muñoz, S. & Bermúdez, J. P. Intentional mind-wandering as intentional omission: The surrealist method. Synthese 199, 7727–7748 (2021).
• Irving, Z. C. Drifting and directed minds: The significance of mind-wandering for mental action. J. Philos. 118, (2021).
• Irving, Z. C. Mind-wandering is unguided attention: accounting for the “purposeful” wanderer. Philos. Stud. 173, 547–571 (2016).
• Murray, S. & Krasich, K. Can the mind wander intentionally? Mind Lang. 37, 432–443 (2022).

Distant Associations

These studies show the importance of distant associations––that is, drawing connections between seemingly unrelated ideas––for creativity. That effect was why we chose to structure the routine around an overarching metaphor: of moving from the night, through sleep, and into the inspiration of the morning sun. We encourage you to draw distant associations between your thoughts and those natural phenomena.

• Kenett, Y. N., Beaty, R. E., Silvia, P. J., Anaki, D. & Faust, M. Structure and flexibility: Investigating the relation between the structure of the mental lexicon, fluid intelligence, and creative achievement. Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 10, 377–388 (2016).
• Wang, J. Attention and Memory as Mechanisms for Creative Insight (Under Review) (Even though this paper is not published yet, I included it because it’s awesome. You can email Jocelyn for it if you are interested.)

Interrupting Rumination

Together, these studies suggest intense emotions can (at least briefly) interrupt rumination. That was the motivation for including Dark Angels as our first step in the routine.

• Batra, R. K. & Ghoshal, T. Fill Up Your Senses: A Theory of Self-Worth Restoration through High-Intensity Sensory Consumption. J. Consum. Res. 44, 916–938 (2017).
• Mills, C., Porter, A. R., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Christoff, K. & Colby, A. How task-unrelated and freely moving thought relate to affect: Evidence for dissociable patterns in everyday life. Emotion 21, 1029–1040 (2021).

Insight

These studies demonstrate two features of insightful “Aha! Moments” that we tried to emulate with Not Sleepy. First, insights change form––this is what psychologists call “breaking frame”. Second, insights occur all of a sudden.

• Knoblich, G., Ohlsson, S., Haider, H. & Rhenius, D. Constraint relaxation and chunk decomposition in insight problem solving. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 25, 1534–1555 (1999).

• Metcalfe, J. Feeling of knowing in memory and problem solving. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 12, 288 (1986).

• Metcalfe, J. Premonitions of insight predict impending error. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 12, 623–634 (1986).

• Vervaeke, J., Ferraro, L. & Herrera-Bennett, A. Flow as spontaneous thought: Insight and implicit learning. in The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought: Mind-Wandering, Creativity, and Dreaming 309–326 (2018). doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190464745.013.8.