Letting your mind wander is a major cause of unhappiness

by tsmall • 16 years ago

56 22 16 years ago

During my day job, my mind wanders constantly. I work in construction and I'm highly intelligent, which means I rarely have to concentrate hard like others do. So I spend a lot of my time thinking up story and plot details, which actually makes me quite happy.

Although I think having a dozen different characters living in my head probably exempts me from inclusion in a study on happiness.

andrewvc• 16 years ago

Although I think having a dozen different characters living in my head probably exempts me from inclusion in a study on happiness.

nope, only if they get out of your head.

electromagnetic2• 16 years ago

Does escaping onto 'paper' count, or is that simply transmuting the imprisonment into a virtual extension of my mind?

paul9290• 16 years ago

Not that i read the article, but that title speaks to me in the regards obsessing about my work. Prior to working as a front end code guy I answered 100s of calls at the cable company. I worked hard to teach myself how to code and land the jobs I now qualify for. Though there are times when I let my mind wander and worry about if im doing a good job, oh no i messed up a few times im not going to have this job long and other pointless wanders of my mind. This all leads me to be stressed out and not enjoying life, thus I try not to even think too much just do in my current job(which i enjoy).

I didnt not have such worries and wanders of the mind when i worked at the cable company(i hated that job; mindless). There my mind wander in a imaginative way of finding greener pastures and how to get out and or try to make my mark on the world.

shorttime• 16 years ago

This makes sense, if you're intently focused on doing a task or completing something you wouldn't have time to really display any emotion, let alone unhappiness.

msie• 16 years ago

By extension, spending too much time on Hacker News will make you unhappy. Get back to work! ;-)

c0riander• 16 years ago

Although, reading Hacker News is what I'm "actually doing," and I'm very focused on it!

Tycho• 16 years ago

If your mind is wandering, it's probably because you're not interested in what you're doing. Therefore I doubt simply focussing on whatever boring task is before you will bring happiness: the trick is to actually be doing stuff that interests you. Not exactly an Earth-shattering revelation...

mcritz• 16 years ago

This study documents an association but fails to prove causation. Therefore this headline is misleading.

dejb• 16 years ago

The causation could easily be in the opposite direction. People engaged in boring/unhappy activities are more likely to let their minds wander.

m-photonic• 16 years ago

The study does address that possibility:

>Even more intriguingly, they discovered that people's feelings of happiness had much more to do with where their mind was than what they were doing. Only 4.6% of a person's happiness could be attributed to what they were doing, but 10.8% of it was caused by what they were thinking about at the time, and people consistently reported being happiest when their minds were on what they were doing.

However, what I'd suggest is that the happiness associated with an activity isn't 100% a function of the activity in and of itself, but whether or not you're in the right mindset for that activity at the time. Thus it would be possible for the wandering mind to be an effect and not a cause and still be more strongly correlated with happiness than the nature of the activity itself.

jamesbritt• 16 years ago

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1895008

bprater• 16 years ago

What?! Have all the sages had it right by telling people to live in the moment, to become more present? :)

icegreentea• 16 years ago

This is pretty much related to the concept of flow [1]. Simply put, we are most satisfied (in the long term) when in flow, which could be characterized as the blurring of awareness and action, the feeling of control, a distortion of time perception, and some other stuff outlined in the link.

Simply its a more formal definition of 'the zone'. Yeah, the same zone as in sports, music, or coding sessions. Basically, the idea is that almost any activity can be experienced in the flow, and the further away from flow characteristics we move, the less satisfied we are. Thinking about something else while doing the current task is about as far from flow as you can get (unless the other thing you are thinking about is an flow experience thing).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

nostrademons• 16 years ago

There seems to be a major uncontrolled variable in this study, namely external expectations of what you should be doing.

I found, as a kid up through college, that I was happiest when my mind was wandering. As a kid, I also had no expectations about what I should be doing - I basically decided that homework was bullshit as a young teen, so I could do whatever I wanted and not feel guilty about it.

That changed once I got into the working world and suddenly was responsible for my own success. Now, whenever my mind wanders, there's a little voice that goes off in my head and says "But you're not being productive! Nobody cares what you think about, they only care what you do."

It seems like a reasonable hypothesis to say "people are happiest when they're doing whatever their internal value system says they should be doing." And it's consistent with the data. People were least happy when resting, working, and using a home computer, which are also the times that social expectations are highest that you actually should be working. They were most happy when having sex, exercising, and conversing - but nobody expects you to do a job while having sex.

I'd like to see the data broken down by age group and cultural values, and in particular, I'd like to see if it holds true for cultural groups that do not have the same focus on productivity and achievement as middle-class Americans.

paulgerhardt• 16 years ago

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

angusgr• 16 years ago

I'm faintly bemused that the study used an iPhone app to prompt volunteers.

I got rid of my iPhone precisely because I thought it was leading me to not enjoy the times when my mind wandered.

geekfactor• 16 years ago

This article reminds me of a TED talk I liked by Barry Schwartz on "The Paradox of Choice."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM

The speaker argues that that freedom and choice are held as unassailable virtues by Western cultures, but in fact research shows that too much choice leads to unhappiness.

If you think of mind wandering as perhaps a product of too much choice for the mind, the two ideas are complementary.

tsmall• 16 years ago

I didn't think of that video, but I had the same thought. When I have trouble concentrating on what I'm doing, it usually seems to be because I'm thinking about checking what's new online or reading the recent updates on Twitter or checking my email or any of a number of other things. As other people have said, we have almost instant access to more information than ever before. Maybe it will just take a while to figure out how to deal with that without letting the urge to know about everything control us.

crazydiamond• 16 years ago

The several thousand year old practice of "Mindfulness". Derived from the earlier (pre-Buddhist) practice "Vipashyana" (i.e., clear seeing).

Yes, keeping one's mind centered, aka, in the present moment, in awareness, is being happy. Being happy without external causes.

Unhappiness is basically thought-forms or thought-waves saying "I am unhappy" or "I am bored" or "I will be happy when ...". There is no more reality to unhappiness than mere thought-forms. The underlying silence revealed by a still mind is happiness itself.

bhewes• 16 years ago

This reminds me of John Gray's idea that idleness is a burden for most. "Work fends off the heavier burden of idleness, and even the round of commuting keeps the self at bay." http://www.thedrawbridge.org.uk/issue_17/mostly_a_wise_leap_...

scottw• 16 years ago

Happiness is overrated. I'm just fine with a life of mild melancholy peppered with occasional fits of ecstacy.

Letting your mind wander is a major cause of unhappiness

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