When you sit down to focus on something or to relax, pay attention to your thoughts. A wandering mind is like a fly, constantly moving from one thing to the next.
The human brain is constantly asking questions, thinking, worrying, creating problems, imagining, and coming up with effective solutions. This not only happens while you are relaxing but also while driving, eating, or cooking.
A Harvard study has found that people who allow their minds to wander are more likely to be unhappy.
Mindfulness is the ability to be present in the moment and aware of your surroundings without letting your emotions get the best of you.
Although we all have the ability to be mindful, it is easier to access when we practice it every day.
You can be mindful by focusing on your senses or your thoughts and emotions. By doing this, you are training your brain, which will eventually lead to physical changes in your brain.
What Causes A Wandering Mind?
The reason for mind wandering has not been fully understood, but research done in laboratory settings has shown that there is a network of neurons that are linked to mind wandering. This network interacts with some regions in the cortex that deal with behavior and emotions.
This network is usually more active when a person is at rest or working on tasks that don’t require attention. Changes in the activity of this network have been linked to changes in brain activity and a wide range of mental diseases such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Is It Bad To Have A Wandering Mind?
When your mind is wandering, you are less productive and your performance suffers in different ways. Here are a few reasons compiled by cognitive science that suggest that mind-wandering is bad for you:
- If you are not paying attention to your surroundings, you are more likely to have an accident. This could be something as simple as bumping into someone or something, or more serious like ignoring traffic signs and causing a car accident.
- When an employee or student doesn’t understand what’s being explained to them, it can lead to big mistakes. If someone’s mind is wandering, it makes it harder for them to stay focused on their thoughts or activities.
- If you have poor focus, it means you have trouble paying attention to important tasks. This can make it hard to finish time-consuming, tedious, or boring tasks. It can also lead to careless mistakes.
- Depression is one of the common consequences of having a wandering mind.
What Is Meditation?
It is a place where each moment is very important. We can observe the details of our minds when we meditate: Our feelings (such as air blowing on our skin or a unpleasant smell coming into the room), our emotions (loving this, hating that, wanting this, hating that), and our thoughts (like seeing an elephant playing a trumpet would be strange).
Mindfulness meditation asks us to not judge our experience and be curious about the workings of our mind, approaching our experience with kindness to ourselves and others.
What Are The Benefits of Meditation?
When we meditate, it is more helpful to just do the practice rather than fixating on the benefits. However, there are many benefits to mindfulness. Here are five reasons why it is advantageous to be mindful.
- Understand your pain. Pain is a fact of life, but it doesn’t have to rule you. Mindfulness can help you reshape your relationship with mental and physical pain.
- Connect better. Ever find yourself staring blankly at a friend, lover, child, and you’ve no idea what they’re saying? Mindfulness helps you give them your full attention.
- Lower stress. There’s lots of evidence these days that excess stress causes lots of illnesses and makes other illnesses worse. Mindfulness decreases stress.
- Focus your mind. It can be frustrating to have our mind stray off what we’re doing and be pulled in six directions. Meditation honors our innate ability to focus.
- Reduce brain chatter. The nattering, chattering voice in our head seems never to leave us alone. Isn’t it time we gave it a little break?
How To Control A Wandering Mind
Find Your Totem
In the movie Inception, there is a totem that reminds people they are not in a dream when they touch it. This totem helps to keep them grounded in reality.
You can use this same idea to help you stay focused. Find something to use as a reminder to stay focused and stop daydreaming. It should be something you can see and touch.
Both a chess piece and a spinning top can be used as a focus for your mind, as seen in the movie. You could also use a picture of your family, a mini trophy, or even wear a ring.
Promise a Reward
Many people are motivated by the prospect of a reward at the end of a task to push themselves to complete it. The size of the reward should be proportional to the difficulty or length of the task to maintain motivation.
For example:
- Finish a quick house chore = a piece of chocolate
- Complete an annoying administrative task = 10 minutes of Youtube
- A successful day of being in the state of flow = a whole movie on Netflix
Pretty simple stuff, right? But you’d be surprised how often you forget to give yourself a pat on the back for doing a great job on a regular basis.
Enter the State of Flow
Csíkszentmihályi suggests that people can achieve a sustained feeling of happiness by entering a state of flow, wherein they are so focused on a specific activity that their mind does not wander.
If you’re a musician composing a piece of music, you’re probably so focused on the music that you don’t even think about lunch. When you’re in a state of flow, you’re so focused on the present moment that you don’t worry about other things.
Observe The Present Moment As It Is
The goal of mindfulness is not to achieve a state of eternal calm, but simply to pay attention to the present moment without judgment.
We often find ourselves thinking about things other than what we’re doing. That’s why mindfulness is the practice of returning to the present moment. Be kind to your wandering mind. Don’t judge yourself for whatever thoughts crop up, just practice recognizing when your mind has wandered off, and gently bring it back.
Spare Time To Warm Up
It takes time to learn how to ride a bike and to enter the state of flow. For example, you need to warm up your body for 15 minutes before riding a bike. Your mind needs some time to get into the state of flow, and it might take even longer for you to be fully immersed in the experience. But once you have entered the state of flow, time will seem to move more quickly.
Make It Stupid Easy for Your Wandering Mind
If I think a task will be too difficult, I’m turned off and end up procrastinating. But if I break the task into smaller pieces, it’s not as daunting.
A good example of this is, which do you think is easier: 30 pushups or 3 pushups?
It’s easy to see that sometimes our brains need to be told that we’re only doing a small amount of work to get going.
Although this approach may seem initially challenging, it has a number of benefits. Most people find that once they start, they can exceed their initial goals.
Empty Your Mind With Journaling
If your mind is constantly wandering because there is too much stuff floating around in your brain, it can help to spill everything out onto a journal. You can use a pen and paper for this or something digital like Evernote.
There are two basic ways to go about it:
- Freestyle – where you just write whatever randomly flows through your brain without thinking or pausing. This is great if you’ve got a million different ideas racing through your brain.
- Focused – where you create prompts or an outline to streamline your thinking and you just respond to the questions or format. This is best when you want to grasp a certain topic.
Use the “Just 5 Minutes” Method
Try telling yourself you will work on a task for just five minutes. You may find the task feels easier to handle. This tricks your brain into thinking the task requires less effort than it actually does. Five minutes is psychologically manageable for most people.
To stay focused, stop working after five minutes and take a break, no matter what. This will help your brain accept the method as legitimate and overcome the mental hurdle that makes your brain want to wander.
Recite a Focus Mantra
A mantra is like a lucky charm that you can take with you wherever you go. It serves the same purpose as a lucky charm–to remind you to stay focused. You can use a mantra anytime and anywhere.
The most effective type of mantra for me is one that is based on reality. I learned this approach from Dr. Jon Fader, a performance coach who was featured on “Good Morning America.” He refers to this as “objective optimism.”
. You can create a mantra based on your personal successes to make it more powerful.
Some examples:
- If you’re struggling to make yourself go to the gym but have technically been there many times already, you could say, “just another day of heading to the gym—easy.”
- If you’re suffering from impostor syndrome after accepting a promotion, just say, “I’m here for a reason” to remind yourself that your efforts were recognized by others and are the real deal.
- If you’re nervous about an upcoming sports competition but have trained diligently for it, you could say, “I’ve done all the work possible” to remind yourself that your earlier efforts have created the best version of you for the event.
Final Thoughts about Meditation
There is no wrong way to meditate, there is only your way. However, there are some things that you can do to make sure that you are getting the most out of your meditation practice. Make sure that you are in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and focus on your breath.
Although it may seem like you are not doing well when meditating because your mind is occupied, you are actually doing it correctly if you become aware of your thoughts and return your focus to your chosen object of meditation.
Yes, there are definitely more formal ways to take up mindfulness practice. One way would be to join a class or workshop, where you would be able to learn from an experienced teacher in a group setting. There are also many online courses and resources available, which can be a great way to learn at your own pace. Finally, there are retreats that you can attend, which offer a more immersive and in-depth experience.
There are many ways and resources to practice mindfulness, including solo, with friends, or through formal programs like Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction or Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.
wAlthough it may not seem like it, meditating can be very beneficial to your life and the more you do it, the more you will realize this.
