Daydreaming
November 22, 2010 9:35 PM 
Ever find yourself daydreaming? It’s a fun diversion, right? Well, it might not be such a good thing to do. In fact, if you want to be happier, you might want to skip the daydreaming. Here’s why.
Researchers found people spend about 47% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing and that mind-wandering was linked to feel unhappy. Using time-lag analysis, the researchers concluded that mind-wandering was typically the cause, not the result, of unhappiness. The participants were least happy when they were resting, working or at home using a computer. They were happiest when they were making love, exercising or engaging in conversation. What people were thinking was a better predictor of their happiness than what they were doing.
“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” wrote the authors, Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, both psychologists at Harvard University. “The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”
I’m not a psychologist, but I think daydreaming once in a while can’t be all that bad.
Leave a Comment