Is a wandering mind an unhappy mind? A new review of studies on spontaneous versus controlled thinking challenges that adage.
The findings suggest that increased awareness of how our thoughts move when our brains are at rest could lead to better diagnoses and targeted treatments for such mental illnesses as depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“Without this spontaneous mode, we couldn’t do things like dream or think creatively.”
“It’s important to know not only the difference between free-ranging mind-wandering and sticky, obsessive thoughts, but also to understand, within this framework, how these types of thinking work together,” said review coauthor Zachary Irving, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California–Berkeley.
Irving and fellow authors of the qualitative review, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, looked at three different ways in which people think when they’re not directly engaged in tasks: spontaneous thought, ruminative thought, and goal-directed thought.
“We propose that mind-wandering isn’t an odd quirk of the mind,” said lead author Kalina Christoff, a psychology professor at The University of British Columbia. “Rather, it’s something that the mind does when it enters into a spontaneous mode. Without this spontaneous mode, we couldn’t do things like dream or think creatively.”
Irving, who has ADHD, says there are upsides to the most stigmatized mental disorders.
