It’s an age-old debate that those who shower in the morning and those who shower at night have been arguing about since the dawn of time: is it better to shower in the morning at night? Both swear by their daily routine but there’s actually some surprising science behind the best time to shower.
Morning
If you have a tough week ahead and want to perform at your best, shower in the morning. Shelley Carson, a psychology lecturer at Harvard University, calls this the incubation period – the time between posing a problem and solving the problem.
“If you were to come up with a problem that you wanted to solve creatively, and you were working and working on it and couldn’t come up with a solution, then you could put it on the back burner of your mind and allow it to stew there while unconscious processes mull it over,” Dr Carson explains, adding that these processes work best in the shower because you are relaxed but still alert.
Night
If you always find yourself awake and alert past your bedtime, a shower at night would be benefit you, says Christopher Winter, a fellow at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and medical director at the sleep centre at Martha Jefferson Hospital.
“That rapid cooling after you get out of the shower or out of the bath tends to be a natural sleep inducer,” Dr Winter says. “So it’s a nice way to fool your body into thinking it’s time to go to bed.”
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