For years my day had a shape whether I wanted it or not. Up early, workout, quick shower, out the door, forty-five minutes in traffic. The shower wasn't a decision. It was just a thing that happened between the alarm and the freeway.
Now I run my own company, and that scaffolding is gone. Nobody's making me do anything. Which means some days the shower is a decision I forget to make.
Last week I made it. I'd had a brutal day. I was hot, cranky, and overwhelmed by 6pm. I thought a workout would burn off some of it, so I did one, but I was still wound tight. So instead of going straight into dinner prep, I got in the shower. And that was it. That was the reset.
Which got me thinking. When something goes sideways, somebody always says the same thing: go take a shower, you'll feel better.
So I went digging
Why? Is there some science to this?
Turns out, the reset is real.
I assumed the hot water was calming me down. Flipping some switch from wound up to loose while I stood there. But that's not quite it.
What actually happens is the warm water pulls blood up toward your skin, and the real effect comes after you step out, when your core temperature starts to drop. When your core temp drops, your body reads it as a cue to relax. It's the same drop that happens right before you fall asleep, which is why a warm shower at night helps you nod off faster.
There's a second thing. Slow warm water running over your skin hits the same wiring as a hand on the shoulder. Your nervous system has a whole pathway that files certain kinds of touch under comfort instead of sensation. Your body knows the difference between being touched and being soothed, and warm water lands in the soothed column. Yes, you've been getting soothed by a showerhead your whole life.
And then the dumbest, truest thing. The shower is the only part of your day where you actually put the phone down. It comes with you everywhere else in that room. But it can't come in the shower. No screen, nothing to answer, nothing to react to. And it turns out that's exactly the condition your brain needs to do its best thinking. Give a wandering mind eight quiet minutes with nothing to look at and it starts connecting things it couldn't get to all day. That's not a coincidence. That's the whole reason your best ideas ambush you in there.
Adding it up:
A real physical downshift.
A hit of something your body reads as comfort.
The only truly quiet minutes you get.
That does not equal a car wash. That's a genuine reset, and most of us sleepwalk right through it.
What you bring into it
Why not make those eight minutes more intentional?
Listen, if you loved the smell of your high school body wash, stick with it. But the way to get the most out of that shower is to bring your nose into it. It's called aromatherapy for a reason.
My cousin loves citrus, so we just got him onto the Heath Revitalize Hair and Body Wash and it's changed his shower experience. My brother-in-law loves fragrance, he's got a shelf of colognes, so we got him into Patrick's Face + Body Wash, which offers a luxury fragrance experience.
Find the scent you love and level up. And without making this a hard sell, the one thing I'll say about all the body washes we carry: they all do so much more than just clean, which is about all you get from your big-box-store brand.
But I digress.
The point is this. Last week I almost skipped the shower. Hot, cranky, wound tight, ready to just push through to dinner and probably take my mood out on someone else. Instead I got in the shower. Eight minutes later I was a person again. Nothing about the day had changed. I had. That's the thing about the shower. It's never just about getting clean.
Receipts (the research behind all this):
Warm water and falling asleep faster. Haghayegh and colleagues, 2019, in Sleep Medicine Reviews. They pooled thirteen human trials and found that a warm shower or bath one to two hours before bed shortened how long it took people to fall asleep by about a third. The reason is the core temp drop: warm water pulls blood to your skin, you shed heat, your core cools, and that cooldown is the signal that cues sleep.
Why the water feels good and not just warm. Löken and colleagues, 2009, in Nature Neuroscience. They found a specific set of nerve fibers in the skin that fire hardest for slow, gentle, warm contact, and those fibers report to the brain's emotional-touch center rather than the plain "I feel something" center. It's the wiring behind why a caress lands differently than a poke.
Where that touch goes in the brain. Olausson and colleagues, 2002, also in Nature Neuroscience. This is the study that traced those gentle-touch fibers to the insula, the region tied to feeling and comfort, and not to the basic sensation areas. These two together are why I can say your body knows the difference between being touched and being soothed.
Your brain on an easy task. Baird and colleagues, 2012, in Psychological Science, the paper called "Inspired by Distraction." They found that doing something undemanding during a break beat both hard focus and plain rest when it came to solving creative problems afterward. Low effort is the sweet spot for good ideas.
The actual shower study. Irving and colleagues, 2022, in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, titled "The Shower Effect." They showed the magic isn't total boredom, it's a moderately engaging activity, which is exactly what a shower is, that lets your mind wander productively. Too boring and nothing happens. A little something to do, like washing up, and the ideas show up.
Go Take a Shower, You'll Feel Better
For years my day had a shape whether I wanted it or not. Up early, workout, quick shower, out the door, forty-five minutes in traffic. The shower wasn't a decision. It was just a thing that happened between the alarm and the freeway.
Now I run my own company, and that scaffolding is gone. Nobody's making me do anything. Which means some days the shower is a decision I forget to make.
Last week I made it. I'd had a brutal day. I was hot, cranky, and overwhelmed by 6pm. I thought a workout would burn off some of it, so I did one, but I was still wound tight. So instead of going straight into dinner prep, I got in the shower. And that was it. That was the reset.
Which got me thinking. When something goes sideways, somebody always says the same thing: go take a shower, you'll feel better.
So I went digging
Why? Is there some science to this?
Turns out, the reset is real.
I assumed the hot water was calming me down. Flipping some switch from wound up to loose while I stood there. But that's not quite it.
What actually happens is the warm water pulls blood up toward your skin, and the real effect comes after you step out, when your core temperature starts to drop. When your core temp drops, your body reads it as a cue to relax. It's the same drop that happens right before you fall asleep, which is why a warm shower at night helps you nod off faster.
There's a second thing. Slow warm water running over your skin hits the same wiring as a hand on the shoulder. Your nervous system has a whole pathway that files certain kinds of touch under comfort instead of sensation. Your body knows the difference between being touched and being soothed, and warm water lands in the soothed column. Yes, you've been getting soothed by a showerhead your whole life.
And then the dumbest, truest thing. The shower is the only part of your day where you actually put the phone down. It comes with you everywhere else in that room. But it can't come in the shower. No screen, nothing to answer, nothing to react to. And it turns out that's exactly the condition your brain needs to do its best thinking. Give a wandering mind eight quiet minutes with nothing to look at and it starts connecting things it couldn't get to all day. That's not a coincidence. That's the whole reason your best ideas ambush you in there.
Adding it up:
A real physical downshift.
A hit of something your body reads as comfort.
The only truly quiet minutes you get.
That does not equal a car wash. That's a genuine reset, and most of us sleepwalk right through it.
What you bring into it
Why not make those eight minutes more intentional?
Listen, if you loved the smell of your high school body wash, stick with it. But the way to get the most out of that shower is to bring your nose into it. It's called aromatherapy for a reason.
My cousin loves citrus, so we just got him onto the Heath Revitalize Hair and Body Wash and it's changed his shower experience. My brother-in-law loves fragrance, he's got a shelf of colognes, so we got him into Patrick's Face + Body Wash, which offers a luxury fragrance experience.
Find the scent you love and level up. And without making this a hard sell, the one thing I'll say about all the body washes we carry: they all do so much more than just clean, which is about all you get from your big-box-store brand.
But I digress.
The point is this. Last week I almost skipped the shower. Hot, cranky, wound tight, ready to just push through to dinner and probably take my mood out on someone else. Instead I got in the shower. Eight minutes later I was a person again. Nothing about the day had changed. I had. That's the thing about the shower. It's never just about getting clean.
Before you go. If you want the full edit, here's every body wash we actually vouch for, and why each one earns a spot on our shelf.
Receipts (the research behind all this):
Warm water and falling asleep faster. Haghayegh and colleagues, 2019, in Sleep Medicine Reviews. They pooled thirteen human trials and found that a warm shower or bath one to two hours before bed shortened how long it took people to fall asleep by about a third. The reason is the core temp drop: warm water pulls blood to your skin, you shed heat, your core cools, and that cooldown is the signal that cues sleep.
Why the water feels good and not just warm. Löken and colleagues, 2009, in Nature Neuroscience. They found a specific set of nerve fibers in the skin that fire hardest for slow, gentle, warm contact, and those fibers report to the brain's emotional-touch center rather than the plain "I feel something" center. It's the wiring behind why a caress lands differently than a poke.
Where that touch goes in the brain. Olausson and colleagues, 2002, also in Nature Neuroscience. This is the study that traced those gentle-touch fibers to the insula, the region tied to feeling and comfort, and not to the basic sensation areas. These two together are why I can say your body knows the difference between being touched and being soothed.
Your brain on an easy task. Baird and colleagues, 2012, in Psychological Science, the paper called "Inspired by Distraction." They found that doing something undemanding during a break beat both hard focus and plain rest when it came to solving creative problems afterward. Low effort is the sweet spot for good ideas.
The actual shower study. Irving and colleagues, 2022, in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, titled "The Shower Effect." They showed the magic isn't total boredom, it's a moderately engaging activity, which is exactly what a shower is, that lets your mind wander productively. Too boring and nothing happens. A little something to do, like washing up, and the ideas show up.