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A new study confirms something we've all suspected, most of us are a thousand miles away whenever we can be.
It turns out that just under half the time people are doing what's called mind wandering. When everything is under control, they drift. They are not so focused on the task at hand nor too concerned about the rest of the world.
Researchers found that people were at their happiest when making love, exercising, or talking. They were least happy when resting, working or using a home computer.
People reported that their mind wandered no less than 30% of the time, during everything except love making. And here's the kicker, people report being unhappy during mind wandering. Something that we do nearly half the time makes us unhappy!
A new study has broken new ground in our understanding of mindfulness. People have two distinct ways of interacting with the world, one is the default network.
Its so called because it becomes active when not much else is happening and you think about yourself. It's the network involved in planning, daydreaming and ruminating.
This default network becomes active when you think about yourself or other people. It holds together a narrative, a story line with characters interacting over time. The brain holds vast stores of information about your and others' histories. When the default network is active you are thinking about this history and the future and all the people you know, how this giant tapestry of information weaves together.
The default network is active for most of your waking moments and doesn't take much effort to operate. There's nothing wrong with this network, the point here is you don't want to limit yourself to only experiencing the world through this network.
In the narrative network, you take in information from the outside world, process it through a filter of what everything means, and add your interpretations.
There is a whole other way of function called direct experience. You are not thinking intently about the past or future, other people, or yourself, or considering much at all. Rather, you are experiencing information coming into your senses in real time.
A series of other studies has found that these two circuits, narrative and direct experience, are inversely correlated. In other words, if you think about an upcoming meeting while you wash dishes, you are more likely to overlook a broken glass and cut your hand. The brain map involved in visual perception is less active when the narrative map is activated. You don't see as much or hear as much, or feel as much, or sense anything as much when you are lost in thought.
You can experience the world through your narrative circuitry, which will be useful for planning, goal setting, and strategizing.
The direct experience network allows you to get closer to the reality of any event. You perceive more information about things around you, as well as more accurate information about events. Noticing more real-time information makes you more flexible in how you respond to the world. You become less imprisoned by the past, your habits, expectations or assumptions, and more able to respond to events as they unfold.
People high on a mindfulness scale were more aware of their unconscious processes. They had more cognitive control, and a greater ability to shape what they do and say.
Psychology Today
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