The world of science is full of “Eureka” moments, where a sudden insight or solution to a problem suddenly appears in the mind, from the story of Archimedes in the bathtub to Newton’s apple and Einstein’s theory of relativity.
There are two modes of thinking, intentional and unintentional. Intentional thinking is thinking on purpose, including planning, analysis, and problem-solving. Unintentional thinking is when our attention is drawn towards automatic thoughts when our mind wanders away from what we are doing in the present. The thoughts that arise when our mind wanders can be negative, positive, or neutral and about the past, present, or future. Unintentional automatic thoughts tend to be more negative for several reasons:
- Our brains evolved with an inbuilt negativity bias, which accentuates things that are threatening, or unpleasant, over things that are safe and pleasant.
- Like many social media algorithms, automatic thoughts are subject to the law of entropy, so degrade from order to disorder.
- They may be negative repeating habit patterns or beliefs about ourselves and our story. For instance, “I’m not attractive, successful, or intelligent enough”.
Neuroscientists have discovered a part of the brain called the default mode network that becomes active when there is not much going on, for instance, cleaning our teeth or taking a shower. The default mode network switches our attention to internal dialogue, similar to a smart speaker, like Amazon’s Alexa in our heads. This internal dialogue tells us things like, “Still haven’t organized that holiday. Not looking at my best today. Are those bags under my eyes getting worse? This mirror needs cleaning…”
The latest research on mind-wandering explores the idea that we have an unconscious monitoring function that scans our mental content just below awareness and automatically switches it into attention in moments of apparent downtime. This function alerts us to unresolved activities and unfinished business that may be useful in the future, as well as habitual past and present-moment commentary about us and our situation. So, for example, our attention may be drifting when driving a car as our mind wanders to explore pre-conscious mental content about who we are meeting at the destination.
Some automatic thoughts can be positive, expanding, and nurturing and others can be negative, limiting and depleting. A big part of mindfulness practice is about noticing and observing these as they pass through the mind with what is called meta-awareness – the awareness of the content of our conscious experience.
Like the eureka moments, positive automatic thoughts can help us solve complex problems as well as be creative. Positive mind-wandering plays an important and inspiring role in many creative and performing arts, including music, literature, painting, acting, and photography. Interestingly, some artists, poets, and writers use daydreaming as part of the creative process. Obviously, they must remain aware and awake while they drift off. So maybe all those times when your attention drifted off in the classroom at school, or in those overly long meetings at work, can now be justified!
The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe and is amazingly powerful. One well-known technique for solving difficult problems is to send a well-formed question to the back of our minds and wait for the answer to percolate. For instance, asking “How can I overcome the block on the project I’m working on?” and then move on to something else. The chances are that sometime later, maybe when you are walking the dog or taking a shower, a useful answer pops into your head.
When we practise mindfulness, we learn to become more aware of and notice when our mind wanders. This is not so that we stop this activity or block thoughts; it’s to step back and gain insight and understanding of how our mind operates. Without awareness, negative automatic thoughts define and limit who we are, and we miss the positive, useful, and creative ideas and insights that emerge. So being more aware of both positive and negative mind-wandering can make a real difference to our wellbeing and performance.
Suggested weekly practice
- Use curiosity and awareness to observe whether your mind works in the ways described above and see what insights emerge.
- Have a go at solving a difficult problem by sending a well-formed question to the back of your mind, leaving it to percolate and see what happens.
- Watch your automatic thoughts and observe whether they are useful positive, expanding, and nurturing or negative, limiting, and depleting.
Guided practice
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.
- Play the settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
- Then close your eyes while this meditation plays that starts with noticing sounds and then explores noticing thoughts.
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