Are you someone who often gets lost in thoughts at work and think it obstructs your productivity? Now you don’t need to be ashamed of it. Scientists have established that a wandering mind at work or home may not be as bad as you think.
Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, US, conducted a new research study that suggests that daydreaming while you are in meetings is not a bad thing. This is actually a sign that you are smart and creative. Eric Schumacher, a Georgia Tech psychology professor who is also the coauthor of the study says that people with efficient brains perhaps have too much brain capacity unable to stop their brains from wandering.
The lead co-author Christine Godwin with Schumacher conducted the study with his students by measuring the brain patterns of people while they lay in MRI machine. In the study the participants were asked to focus on a stationary fixation point for five minutes and they also filled a questionnaire about how much their minds wander daily.
They found out which parts of the brain work together while an awake and resting state. These same brain patterns measured during these states were found to have different cognitive abilities. The frequent daydreaming scores higher intellectual and creative level.
According to Schumacher people who think they cant pay attention and consider it bad is not always true. Some poeple have more efficient brains and higher efficiency causes more capacity to think and the brain to wander while performing easy tasks.
If you wish to know your brain’s efficiency then one clue is that you are able to zone in and out of tasks or conversations appropriately. You can also naturally tune in without missing out on crucial points or steps. It is like those people who are brilliant but off in their own world and most of the times oblivious to their own surroundings. Also like the school children who are intellectually advanced for their classes and figure out things more quickly than their friends and go back to daydreaming.
The researchers wish to do a follow up research to understand further if the wandering mind is harmful and when it can be helpful.
