Bathroom habits across the globe

What do your morning routines include? Are they very different here in the UK than in New York or Moscow? Those lovely people at IKEA have done their research and put together a report to see how we all compare.

 

For instance did you know that for some, we are at our most creative in the groggy wake-up period first thing in the mo­rning?  Not many of us put this time to creative use though.

 

In fact it’s interesting to see how our morning routines in different cities across the globe compare. They aren’t so very different.

 

• For instance 59% of Londoners take a bath or shower in the morning taking an average of 12 minutes for the pleasure
• In Paris the figure rises to 60% of the population jumping in the shower or bath but still managing to finish their ablutions in 12 minutes
• In New York it drops to 56% but they allow themselves some extra time – a whole 14 minutes
• For comparison, in the Chinese city of Shanghai just a mere 8% take a morning shower or bath and then for just 11 minutes.
• Come west to Mumbai and the average time taken is 11 minutes by the 73% of its citizens taking a bath or shower

 

Time for self-reflection

A little time to take stock on who we are and what we have to do is always useful. Even so we were quite surprised to learn that 43% of Londoners claimed self-reflection was important in the morning. Their favourite place for self-reflection was the shower which is also the favourite place of the 53% of New Yorkers who claim it as an important morning activity.

 

Shanghai once again flouts the norms of statistics in this report. While morning self-reflection is still important to its citizens, they choose listening to music over the shower for self-reflection.

 

The blurred lines between work and home

Technology is blurring the lines between work and home and work and play. Finding that work-life balance gets harder and in the meantime our homes often become temporary offices or places of work.

 

We aren’t surprised to see that the dining table has found itself doubling as an office desk or even that the bedroom has become the work hub. We are more surprised however to learn that 12% of Londoners have worked in the bathroom!

 

In New York the bedroom comes out tops as the alternative workspace but as many as 16% have worked in the bathroom. Parisians seems to have a healthier attitude to bringing work home with all statistics lower. The bathroom as the workplace of choice in the home is down to 9% in Paris. In Stockholm the bathrooms equals New York’s popularity for this spot as a work station!

 

An inviting bathroom

We guess that all of these activities are easier to accomplish in a bathroom with a welcoming atmosphere and superb facilities like the ones supplied by Livinghouse.

 

N.B.  All statistics unless otherwise stated come from Ikea’s Life at Home report part 1