Thinking harder isn’t always the answer.

In 2012, psychologist Benjamin Baird studied what happens to creativity when people stop actively thinking about a problem and do something else.

He was testing an idea in creativity research called incubation: the notion that solutions emerge after you step away. 

Baird asked: Do people’s creative breakthroughs happen at rest? During distractions? And if so - what kind?

THE STUDY:

Everyone completed an initial creativity task.

Then people were placed into one of four break conditions:

1) A demanding distraction (a task that required focused attention)
2) An undemanding distraction (a boring, automatic task)
3) No break (they moved on without interruption)
4) Rest (quiet downtime, no task)

After the break, all participants did the creativity task again.

THE RESULTS:

The demanding distraction, no-break, and rest groups showed no significant improvement in creativity performance.

Only one group improved:
Participants given an undemanding distraction increased their creativity performance by roughly 40%.

In the study, creativity performance was measured by how many original ideas people could generate when asked to find unusual uses for everyday objects. 

Participants whose attention was lightly occupied (undemanding) crushed it. While the rest, (those who worked harder, those who rested, those who powered through without rest) didn’t  improve their creativity performance at all.

COACH

I still remember my high school basketball coach Mark pulling me aside during a timeout. We were getting beaten badly and I was in a shooting slump, forcing every shot and growing more frustrated with each miss. 

He looked at me and said, "You've got to let the game come to you."

I nodded like I understood. I didn't. 

Because everything in my life up to that point preached the opposite: Push through, focus more.

But trying harder at a creative problem is like trying harder at falling asleep - you end up making things worse.

JUST ADD WATER  

Showers aren't mentioned anywhere in Baird's study, but they're real-world examples of what his research proved.

A shower is an undemanding low-stakes task. A liquid life time out where you’re shielded from the dings, demands and doom-scrolling of the day.

Think about where else you try to solve problems:

• Your desk comes with productivity pressure and constant evaluation

• Your walks get interrupted by work or social media

• Your bed carries sleep or next day anxiety

• Sitting still gives rumination the space to send you spiraling

But the shower… 

It’s the ideal getaway; an attention-light activity that boosts insight and only asks you to wash where the sun don’t shine.

THE SHOWER EFFECT

Work environments expect you to explain your thinking while it’s still forming. For many dyslexic adults, that’s when thinking breaks.

Not because our ideas are weak, but because we’re asked to explain them before we’ve had the time to work through our thoughts.

Dyslexic problem-solving doesn’t happen step-by-step. It happens in fragments, images and non-sequential connections.

The solitude, warm water and temporary escape of showers give the brain space to complete thought patterns without having to explain them mid-stream.

When there’s little or no pressure to perform, anxiety drops and insight doesn’t have to fight its way through language.

CREATING SPACE 

Most of us were trained to believe that real imagination and creativity happen under pressure at our desks, in meetings or in “deep work” sessions.

But for dyslexics, demanding clarity too early tightens the process instead of unlocking it.

We’ve all been there. Moments when the answer shows up after you stop chasing it. It’s that undemanding state where creativity, problem solving and imagination happen almost magically.

Showers are more than daydreaming escape chambers. They create the exact conditions where pattern-based thinking can finish its work without interruption or judgment.  

So we didn’t win that many games the year my High School Coach Mark said “Let the game come to you.”

But even after all these years, the lesson holds up.

Some problems don’t get solved by pushing harder.
They get solved by stepping away long enough for the play to unfold.

Sometimes the smartest move isn’t more effort.
It’s hitting the showers and letting the game come to you.

ONE MORE THING!

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