‘Our minds wander for 50 per cent of waking hours’

Even as we sit down to write the first words of this article a fluttering pigeon somewhere outside the window makes us go back to when we went out for a walk to Marine Drive three months ago We begin missing the sunset the crashing waves and the chaos of the crowd on the promenade We return to writing this piece againCognitive neuroscientist Moshe Bar director of the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at BarIlan University Tel Aviv doesnrsquot see this drifting of thoughts as a concern ldquoEverybody thinks that mind wanderers are freaks of nature But it turns out that all of us wander for about 50 per cent of our waking hours which I think is stunningrdquo he tells us over a video call from Tel Aviv His just released book Mindwandering How it Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity Bloomsbury is a pioneering attempt to destigmatise the act of wandering in thoughtWhile not all mind wandering is productive Moshe Bar says that we need to stop feeling guilty about it Instead we should be more aware of our thoughtsBeyond his own interest in the subject significant developments in cognitive neuroscience research compelled him to study wanderers ldquoOne of them was the discovery of what we call the default mode network DMN It turns out that the moment people are not busy with a specific demanding task a good chunk of their brain is actually vigorously active and there is this giant network DMN that consumes a lot of their time energy and metabolic activity There is a white paper in science which shows the overlapmdashyour mind wandering and the neural activation as seen by the functional MRI machines We realised that the DMN is the seat of mind wandering This made scientists like me curious about what the function of mind wandering was and why we spend so much energy in something thatrsquos considered aimlessrdquoEdited excerpts from the interviewThere is a tendency to mistake mind wandering for daydreaming How are they differentDay dreaming overlaps with mind wandering but the latter is seen as a host or rather a cluster of operations and processes that include everything from planning mental stimulations of upcoming events reminiscing about the past to sometimes taking things from the past and projecting them into the future Not all mind wandering is productive some of it is actually hurtful for us like ruminative thinking a persistent cyclical thinking pattern that surround the same topic A ruminative mind would dwell on the same incident or episode examine it from multiple angles repeatedly irrationally while typically agonising over it We need to be more aware of the wandering mind and not feel guilty about it Itrsquos a good idea to learn about its benefits so that we donrsquot stop it when it is appropriate for usto continueOne of the aims of the book is to also explain why mind wandering is not so bad after all How can it be a constructive activityWandering helps you travelmdashwe call it mental time travel the content of your thought consists of the present or whatrsquos in front of you the past or some random reminiscing or a memory that is or not related in some way to your present and the future or planning weighing consequences or simply worrying It can take you to a past project it into the future and help you better prepare We are organisms who at the end of the day need certaintyBecause mind wandering relies heavily on what we have stored in memory young children wander to a lesser extent Is that a good thingThe vast majority of the brain finishes developing by the time you are five or six years old But our proclivity for mind wandering leans heavily on the prefrontal cortex resides in the front of the brain It is the latest to mature usually around your mid20s In order to develop this area which helps you understand new situations based on old situations and all possible outcomes you have to acquire more experiences Until then your ability to understand consequences of your actions and risks are compromised This is really a chicken and egg situation A sixyearold wouldnrsquot be able to envision what it would mean to give a talk in a large auditorium because she has never been in such an environment before They donrsquot have the database to generate these projectionsYou write about what occupies the mind and DMN when we wandermdashfirst is the self and next is trying to figure out others and what they think of us How can clarity about the self and what others think about us help address crucial feelingsYes therersquos one part of us that thinks about the self and this entity of ldquowho is merdquomdashwersquore constantly updating it And then there is the Theory of Mind sometimes called also mentalising where we use this same default network to understand others their emotions and beliefs Trying to infer what is in the minds of others is critical for our interactions and also for survival But sometimes we are delusionalmdashalmost arrogantmdashin believing in our ability to understand the intentions of others Itrsquos already hard for us to know whatrsquos going on in our own mind If we cannot understand ourselves how are we going to understand others The best we can do is be aware of this discrepancy Tao Te Ching ancient Chinese text that discusses how to live with integrity and honesty by Lao Tzu says ldquoKnowing others is wisdom Knowing the self is enlightenmentrdquoCan we really control how much we wanderWe cannot just tell ourselves ldquoletrsquos start wandering nowrdquo Itrsquos a spontaneous process and itrsquos not impervious to our conscious interventions It is good to recognise when you are in a state of positive creative wandering You have to give it room You can summon it but not really control itThroughout the book you hark back to meditation a tool that you say helps us understand our mind betterI am a novice in the practice But I think itrsquos a really cool tool As a neuroscientist I cannot study the mind without looking inward I think meditation makes you think about what you are thinking Itrsquos intimate and rich Itrsquos a powerful tool to allow yourself to observe your thoughts This doesnrsquot mean that you can control your mind but you can be aware of the content and the breath of your thought and sometimes are able to label them either as onetime visitors or something that keeps recurring