Mind Wandering

Posted by Beetle B. on Thu 31 January 2019

Mind wandering is when our mind is thinking about something other than what we should focus on. Ruminating, jumping around, etc.

Studies show our mind wanders about 47% of the time.

The default network is the part of the brain that is activated when not really focusing on anything. It is where random thoughts come in.

The default network is very fast. It is activated within a fraction of a second after a task.

The default network thinks about:

  • The past
  • The future
  • Other people

Anything but the here and now. This was shown from fMRI scans.

Mind wandering is useful, but has a negative effect on happiness. Mind wandering about pleasant things (e.g. upcoming vacation) makes you happy. All other mind wandering makes you unhappy.

Meditation is about turning your mind away from random thoughts, and making it focus on one thing.

Study on expert meditators. They were asked to try 3 types of meditation:

  • Loving Kindness
  • Focus on breath
  • Choiceless Awareness

They had controls. The results were that all 3 showed less default activation. The study also showed that when not meditating, expert meditators had less default activation.

Another study showed that meditating for a half hour a day for 8 weeks (loving kindness meditation) led to a very noticeable increase in gray matter in the brain. These were not expert meditators (but 30 minutes a day is challenging).