Haircuts can be quite traumatic experiences, or at least for some of your hair which is in a vulnerable position and about to meet its (split) end. But a haircut can literally and metaphorically lift some weight from your shoulders. This exercise can be performed at any time in a barbers, hairdressers or stylists, however to fully appreciate the effect it helps to have quite long hair.

Sometimes it feels as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders, you have so many different things on your mind, that it would probably be a good time to just sit down for a bit, perhaps in a hairdressers chair, often you’ll be asked by the hairdresser if you have any plans for the weekend or the week ahead, you should use this time to think about what you are doing and what you’d like to do in the next week or so, sometimes you might get asked about holidays, do you have anything planned? It’s good to have a break and you can use this time in the hairdressers to take a break too. You can just sit there and close your eyes and let the hairdresser take control as they cut away the bits that were clouding your vision or sticking out, with each cut imagine a problem that you had being snipped away. This haircut will hopefully help you to a more streamlined and healthier art work life balance.

Hair Piece, Swansea Institute of Higher Education, 2006, interactive performance