A Musician's Doping

In my short essay about jazz above (I compare playing jazz to going away on a holiday - practising like packing systematically makes sure you'll be prepared for anything), I state that jazz is primarily an intuitive art form. Trusting on skills and knowledge only as pillars, with freedom in mind, it's about expressing something.
And it's amazing how intuition can be trained!
Yesterday, I listened to different piano players for hours. If I liked a tune, I listened to it repeatedly. But I didn't play anything.
Today, as I started my daily practising routine, I heard me playing differently. Somehow, ideas, melodies, chords, and most of all, phrasing from the really great cats, had made their way into my brain, and parts of it came out through my fingers. Isn't that unbelievably cool? You can play better by doing absolutely nothing!
Of course, I know, I know: it won't last. Much like a common doping, the effect decreases. But it's still great to know that there's a way to trick your brain into playing better, without effort, without thinking even (what a pity, I like to do that so much). I've used this effect in the end of the semester before my piano lesson. Afterwards, I felt relaxed and inspired, which made me sound really good (my teacher said that).
Unfortunately, this knowledge has to be renewed often, in my case at least - I often practise more than I listen to music, because as a good swiss girl, I'm trained to believe that only effort and hard work can lead to success...

A picture of what went into the bin after my second year of jazz studies. Another thing I like to do since I'm swiss: to clean out!