MIND WANDERING, THE DEFAULT MODE NETWORK & CREATIVITY: How the Practice of Yoga and Mindfulness Can Enhance Your Thoughts & Well-Being

 

Mind Wandering

WHEN YOUR ATTENTION SHIFTS AWAY FROM THE CURRENT 

ACTIVITY TO AN INTERNAL STREAM OF THOUGHT

You are actively working on a team project, in conversation with your neighbor, or sitting in a lecture hall learning about art history and, all of a sudden, you "space out." Your mind left the project, the conversation, or the room; taking it upon itself to exit the current situation in lieu of staying, attending and focusing. 

Conscious experience is fluid and rarely is one focused on a particular topic or action for very long. 

Upon returning to awareness, your short trip away may have been experienced as good, bad, rewarding, energizing, concerning and/or a plethora of other feelings. 

Mind wandering is considered a normal and typical cognitive process and human experience that occurs throughout the day. 

Sometimes this works to your advantage, helping you to solve a problem by seeing connections that have previously been elusive, and at other times, it creates a hardship by veering your attention off-focus, losing key elements of a lecture or conversation that were needed in order to successfully progress. 

Your personal experience is the determining factor as to whether this occurrence was adaptive, meaning it gave rise to creativity, or maladaptive, meaning it negatively affected your mood and energy. 

SPONTANEOUS THOUGHTS

Spontaneity of thinking occurs when your attention departs from your perception of the environment and, instead, becomes focused on your internal dialogue, wandering deep into the infinite space of your mind to think, create, remember, connect, etc. 

Mind wandering often falls within the following broad categories: daydreaming, fantasizing, visualizing, and worrying. It can occur while driving, reading, studying, working on a project, and even during conversation. The wandering off may have originally been triggered by external factors, such as a floral scent reminiscent of your grandmother's home or a song taking you back to your first concert. The external stimulus has now become an internal escape into another time, another place, and/or another experience. 

So ... why does your brain do this? 

Jonathan Smallwood, professor of psychology, has made it his mission to  study mind wandering, a seemingly immeasurable concept; something researchers typically veer away from since its lack of measurability would make it difficult to strategize hypothesis testing while adhering to the tenets of research design. This challenge, however, did not dissuade Dr. Smallwood who set on course decades ago to investigate spontaneous and unpredictable thoughts. Concluding that what appears to be a waste of time may actually be "the brain trying to get a bit of work done when it is under the impression that there isn't much going on."

With the recent advancements in brain imaging, neuroscientists have been able to measure brain activity. Before the development of this sophisticated technology,  the ability to determine what is occurring when an individual is not occupied with a behavior or task was both challenging and elusive. 

 "AHA!" MOMENTS CAN EMANATE FROM FOCUSED THINKING AS WELL AS DAYDREAMING

Default Mode Network

The brain's Default Mode Network (DMN) plays a role in attention and memory. The DMN pertains to spontaneous cognition, or the "stream of consciousness." This network is closely associated with mind wandering. As mind wandering occurs, activity within the DMN increases. Without the active engagement of conscious focus, your mind will unconsciously meander.  

Several studies support the increased activity of the DMN when the brain is not actively focusing or attending to external stimuli. The DMN appears to contribute quite a bit to internally directed thoughts and self-referential mental processes. It opens the gateway to engagement in self-generated cognition which includes daydreaming, planning, remembering and imagining. The DMN is activated during times of introspective thinking, self-reflection, and the processing of internal thoughts, emotions and memories. It is primarily associated with low-frequency brain activity. 

When we compare this with the fastest brain waves (gamma) that occur when you are in the flow state (or in the zone), where focus is at its highest, you can then make the comparison of viewing these two brain phenomena  as  "zoned out" versus "being in the zone." The latter is associated with low-levels of internal dialogue and self-referential thinking, and it appears that the brain's central executive network (CEN) plays a critical role in flow-related focused states. The flow state is crucial for high level performance, such as in professional sports. An athlete whose mind wanders during a game increases the probability of making mistakes. 

While the DMN appears to be the central network involved in mind wandering, it does not work alone. Specific to creativity (which we will delve into in the next section), other networks known as the salience and executive control networks seem to also play a role. 

Whereas the DMN is involved in memory and mental stimulation, the salience network is adept at selecting, picking up on and detecting both environmental and internal information determined critical for attention and the creative process. The executive control network helps to keep us focused on the useful ideas, while discerning what needs to be tossed out. This reminds me of Bruce Lee's famous quote:  

Absorb what is useful,

reject what is useless,

add what is essentially your own.

-Bruce Lee

Creativity & Divergent Thinking 

The ability to generate novel and useful ideas is the broad definition of creativity. Creative cognition, considered a higher or more advanced cognitive function, is important for human evolution and development. Both the arts and science lend themselves to creative processing; the former via abstract form, and the latter via complex problem solving.

It is commonly believed that creativity is restricted or designated to a particular lobe, such as the "right" in the right versus left brain debate; however, creativity is actually a whole brain activity. Many networks are involved as the brain is a complex organ. 

When engaged in a highly creative activity or seeking to activate your creativity, allowing yourself space to mind wander can be just what you need to invoke your inner muse. Additional strategies to stimulate divergent thinking is to journal, ask and reflect on better and deeper questions, and mind map. 

While a meandering mind can certainly be the gateway to divergent thinking (which is key to creativity), it can also contribute to the loss of the new thought if the mind continues to wander off-course. The new and exciting thought, connection or idea will obliterate if not properly harnessed. Will it show up again? Maybe, or maybe not! 

To your advantage will be the ability to activate conscious focus and balance the interplay between the mind going off on a field trip and bringing it back to the current reality of attention and awareness. 

Is there a way of augmenting the positive aspects of mind wandering, while decreasing its negative effects? Can you change the direction of your thoughts? The short and simple answer —> Yes! You can simultaneously choose where your energy goes while giving your mind permission to, at times, freely roam and wander. However, as with most things, this is easier said than done! 

As mentioned earlier, while mind wandering can certainly enjoy many benefits such as enhanced creativity and problem solving, it can also be associated with a negative mood if the preponderance of mind wandering includes plunging into the abyss of worry, fears and misery. Research supports that contemplative practices such as yoga and mindfulness have positive effects on directing these thoughts.

Yoga

Yoga, a deeply rooted, healing and integrative practice, emphasizing the mind-body connection, incorporating breathwork, postures, and meditation, originated thousands of years ago in India and is one of the best holistic health practices we have available to us today. 

Yoga both strengthens the nervous system while simultaneously calming it. A stronger and calmer nervous system is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, and your brain! Productivity, focus, and clarity soar when you and your body feel calm and connected, while fatigue, inattentiveness, and irritability elevate when you and your body feel dysregulated, disconnected, and fearful (or anxious). The practice of yoga beautifully integrates the process of letting go (and letting it flow) with conscious focus and attention. This combination of a comprehensive mind and body practice is difficult to find elsewhere. 

Mindfulness

Mindfulness helps recalibrate your mind and body. It is the act of paying attention to the present moment with a non-judgmental attitude. Consistently practiced and over time, as with yoga, a mindfulness practice is brain restorative.  It helps to change the neural circuitry to one of serenity and peace.  

As incoming stimuli is typically judged as good or bad, positive or negative, mindfulness helps you to see these "as is" with no need to evaluate or judge. You consciously meet the stimuli with a calm strength and presence. Imagine how much energy would be restored by not having a reaction or a judgment to each and every incoming stimulus? You would essentially be training your mind to transition from reactivity to simply being. The energy not needlessly spent on evaluation can now be allocated to focusing! This also applies to mind wandering. Mindfulness can ease the propensity to roam for too long either into the past or the future, two states that only exist in your mind but may or may not be grounded in reality if this time travel evokes anxiety, prolonged sadness and grief, and/or fear. 

If mind wandering has largely led to negative states for you, then you may wish to look into mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), which is a form of cognitive therapy but redesigned to focus on the elements of mindfulness and breathwork.  (Considered efficacious but it by no means is the only intervention available.) Its inception was due to the work of professor of medicine, Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program. Mindfulness based therapies help individuals free themselves from escalating negative and debilitating thought patterns and, instead, learn and change the neural circuitry (over time) to that of calmness and equanimity. The MBSR program, gaining in popularity due to its efficacy, is widely offered at medical centers, hospitals and other health maintenance and healing organizations. 

The practice of yoga together with mindfulness are non-invasive and non-pharmacological tools to help you harness your thoughts toward focus and self-compassion, while enhancing self-awareness and cognitive clarity. Both work in tandem to allow for the creative wandering and the deliberate mobilization of attention and focus. 

REFERENCEs

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Constructivism in the Human Sciences, 8(2), 73–107.

Lee, Bruce. 2013. Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Ohara Publications. 

Ramírez-Barrantes R, Arancibia M, Stojanova J, Aspé-Sánchez M, Córdova C, Henríquez-Ch RA. Default Mode Network, Meditation, and Age-Associated Brain Changes: What Can We Learn from the Impact of Mental Training on Well-Being as a Psychotherapeutic Approach? Neural Plast. 2019 Apr 2

Tina Chou, Darin D Dougherty, Andrew A Nierenberg, Thilo Deckersbach,Restoration of default mode network and task positive network anti-correlation associated with mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for bipolar disorder, Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, Volume 319, 2022,

Shofty, B., Gonen, T., Bergmann, E. et al. The default network is causally linked to creative thinking. Mol Psychiatry 27, 1848–1854 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01403-8

Smallwood, J & Schooler, J. The Science of Mind Wandering: Empirically Navigating the Stream of Consciousness.Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 66: 487-518. (Volume publication date January 2015) 

The information presented in this blog is intended for general knowledge and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment. As with most things in life, there isn't a magic pill or "cure-all" but there are strategies to help regain control of your life.

PROCEED AS IF SUCCESS IS INEVITABLE

If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more, then let's connect:

 FACEBOOK: Marie Therese Rogers

 Atlantic Behavioral Health Professionals

 Life in Focus

 LINKEDIN:  Marie T. Rogers, Ph.D. 

 INSTAGRAM: Mariethereserogers

You are also invited to listen to the LIFE IN FOCUS podcast on Apple and other streaming devices.

Bookbaby    Amazon