This past Fall, I spent three weeks working from Canyon Ranch Tucson and noticed some surprising benefits to my creativity and problem-solving abilities. As someone who has worked from home for over 4 years, I imagined working from a hotel room wouldn’t be much different. But it’s a game-changer when your hotel room comes with a spa.
I researched the mechanisms behind the key elements of spa — heat, touch, and nudity — and discovered there is quite a bit of science behind what felt like an extremely unscientific experience.
It all starts with the power of stress to shut down creativity. If your job is full of deadlines and pressure, then the space needed to be creative is often the first to go because stress puts your brain in survival mode. In caveman days, the source of stress was the tiger outside your cave. Today it’s the angry look on your boss’ face.
For many of us working from home, there’s no way to get away from the stress because your office is in your kitchen, your living room and your bedroom. Hence the rise of the digital nomad who works away from home but not in their employer’s office. But whether you’re in an apartment in Sesimbra, Portugal or NYC, your work is can still press on you.
Many people in corporate wellness talk about ways to fix burnout. They may add a yoga class or some mental health resources but working from spa is a way to find a workplace that is truly designed for stress reduction.
Hard v. Soft Brains
Most tasks like putting together a powerpoint rely on focused, analytic effort from our conscious mind. Creativity and insight, though, require a relaxed brain.
A lot of people, myself included, have believed that concentrating on a task is the way to come up with the best answers but it may not be true especially when you’re looking for a creative solution.
When you’re focusing, your prefrontal cortex (your brain’s command center) has to shut down other areas to do this. Concentration is like a doorman who won’t allow new and creative solutions into the room because it is only looking for that one celebrity.
When we relax, this prefrontal cortex relaxes too and we enter something called our default network. When this network is activated, it opens up pathways so new connections can be made. It’s like the doorman opened the door and all those ideas can now come in and mingle at the party in your brain. It’s those connections between seemingly disparate ideas that lead to creativity.
Although I don’t like waking up early, it was worth it to have an hour in the whirlpool before my first meeting. Just walking into the spa shifted my mindstate to a more relaxed state. Walking down the steps into the warm water melted away all thoughts of work.
Time Wasted is Time Well Spent
Albert Einstein said, “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.” Spa is full of wasted time. But as we all know, it’s not really a waste to let our brains wander, rest and be bored because these are the ways that our brains can relax and that doorman in your brain can let down the velvet rope and allow that inner stream of ideas to flow in.
Spas are all about downtime. If you’re rushing around a spa, you’re not doing it right. Also, aside from an old People magazine, there aren’t many distractions. You really shouldn’t bring your smartphone into a sauna or steam room or the whirlpool.
If like me, you’re working from spa, you can do some prep work to tap into your unconscious so it can do some work for you while you’re in the steam room.
Think about a problem or do some research about it before you go to the spa but then don’t think about it at all while you’re there. Let your mind wander as your muscles relax in the warmth of the healing waters. This way new, creative thoughts can bubble up once the blinders are off.
Artists knew this. Beethoven and Mark Twain spent time in spas writing and composing. De-stressing is key to enhancing creativity and not just for artists but for all of us who like artists are often looking for a new answer whether that’s because you’re designing a strategic plan for your business unit or a new idea for a marketing campaign.
Don’t tell anyone but spa can be your secret weapon to help your mind relax, your body rest, and to harness the latent creativity waiting to be released. Those surprising and new ideas can float up in the space you’ve created in your mind. And you’ll just be happier, which I bet will make you more of a pleasure to work with.
Three Key Benefits of Working From Spa
When your boss asks you for answers, tell her that you have to go work from spa in order to come up with a new solution. Remember, spas are inherently performance enhancing because they are stress-reducing.
The three performance-enhancing qualities of spa:
1. Warm Water and Heat:
Water and heat are like peanut butter and jelly. A perfect match for healing. Hot tubs provide incredible healing benefits. Heat dilates blood vessels and increases circulation, which brings oxygen and nutrients to cells and helps carry the toxins out. Also, it can reduce pain and increase feelings of well-being.
2. Caring Touch:
Another big source of relaxation and letting down our guard is massage. There are many studies about the power of touch. The Mayo Clinic states that massage is increasingly offered for medical conditions. It is stress reducing and mood enhancing. And it is another opportunity to turn off your brain. An hourlong massage spent thinking is a waste of a good massage.
3. Nudity:
There’s a body of science called Enclothed Cognition which studies the psychology of how clothing influences how we think, feel and behave. In the original study scientists asked participants to wear a lab coat, and then performed a series of experiments. When told it was a doctor’s coat the participants did better on cognitive tests. But when they were told it was a painter’s coat, they did worse.
Nudity allow us to safely disrobe and in that act, we lay down our guard and become more vulnerable. I’ve had incredible conversations with strangers in a sauna. There’s something about being naked in a safe space that opens our minds and it’s this openness that can be transformational.
Conclusion
There’s an old model out there that believes performance is about pushing or working hard. Obviously certain outcomes like building muscle or improving endurance require focused effort. But I’m talking about a different type of performance. The performance of open-mindedness and creativity, two qualities the world needs more of.
Personally, I have never known pushing to be a pathway to becoming more creative. It can feel counter-intuitive when big problems loom or deadlines are nearing but taking space especially in this way can lead to enhanced levels of creative productivity.
During my three weeks of “Work from Spa”, being able to soak in the whirlpool before my meetings, getting a massage occasionally, and spending part of the day in a towel definitely shifted my mindset so I could be more open to hearing what people were saying and I could have a broader view of projects.
Obviously we cannot all do this but there are ways to transform your home into a spa to get some of these benefits. Ask roommates or partners or children to massage each other. A shower is a great spa stand-in. Spray eucalyptus oil in the shower to enhance your senses. Close your eyes, savor the warm water and turn your mind off as best you can.
Or you can always try lobbying your company to build a steam room in the office!
Spa is one of my favorite ways to reduce stress and open my brain so I can think and feel better. I think it makes me a better teammate too in addition to all the health benefits.
It’s all about the power of downtime as rest and recovery are key parts of improving performance.
For those of you in the “No Pain, No Gain” camp, I’m sorry to say that pleasure can trump pain for all of us needing rest, renewal, and some more energy to take on our most important projects and goals this year. Trust me when I say that sometimes less can be more.
We can’t all spend a month or a week at a Spa but knowing the benefits, see if you can give yourself a taste of Spa at home.
I did some googling to find a quote about spas to end this article and I found this one. It’s difficult to believe Thomas Jefferson actually said this but regardless, I’ll share it here as a final thought:
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This post was previously published on Age of Awareness.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
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Photo credit: iStock