[HN Gopher] Mind Wandering: More than a Bad Habit (2018) [pdf]
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       Mind Wandering: More than a Bad Habit (2018) [pdf]
        
       Author : yamrzou
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2024-10-20 06:29 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (labs.psych.ucsb.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (labs.psych.ucsb.edu)
        
       | tmshapland wrote:
       | Thanks for posting. Reminds me of Dan Gilbert's famous paper on
       | the subject. He took polls of people at random times during the
       | day when smartphones first emerged.
       | 
       | "In conclusion, a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering
       | mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not
       | happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional
       | cost."
       | 
       | https://dtg.sites.fas.harvard.edu/KILLINGSWORTH%20&%20GILBER...
        
       | arijo wrote:
       | It's interesting how mind wandering can be analysed from
       | different perspectives:
       | 
       | 1. In meditation the main goal is precisely to free ourselves
       | from the monkey mind that seems to be the cause of all suffering
       | 
       | 2. In neuroscience mind wandering is seen as the brain default
       | mode unless we are operating within a goal driven mindset
       | 
       | 3. This can also be seen as a kind of reinforcement learning: we
       | train ourselves to notice when we are mind wandering - this
       | process in itself, after some time, conditions the mind to focus
       | on the present moment
       | 
       | 4. From a metabolic perspective (e.g. ketogenic therapy), mind
       | wandering can be seen as the result of blood glucose fluctuations
       | that cause mental fogginess and impair focus
       | 
       | In my own experience as a long time meditation practitioner, what
       | really made the difference for me was regulating my blood glucose
       | levels by following a ketogenic diet. The change in clarity of
       | mind and focus were life changing to me.
       | 
       | I write a bit on my experience in my blog:
       | 
       | https://www.feelingbuggy.com/p/how-the-ketogenic-diet-helped...
       | 
       | Just my 2 cents on a fascinating subject!
        
         | hanniabu wrote:
         | What is "monkey mind"?
        
           | nickvec wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_mind
        
           | repeekad wrote:
           | The meat in your head that kept our lineage of genetic
           | material procreating for millennia, as opposed to
           | consciousness that is self aware but not always totally in
           | control
        
         | yamrzou wrote:
         | > From a metabolic perspective (e.g. ketogenic therapy), mind
         | wandering can be seen as the result of blood glucose
         | fluctuations that cause mental fogginess and impair focus
         | 
         | Could you please provide some sources for this?
        
           | arijo wrote:
           | https://brainenergy.com
        
         | detourdog wrote:
         | What I think is interesting in your point number 3. is that a
         | social framework be the reinforcement mechanism. Growing up in
         | an isolated environment could presents one reality growing up
         | in a strong social environment presents another reality.
         | 
         | The coping skills in one reality my not translate to the new
         | reality.
        
       | phaedrus wrote:
       | Does mind wandering in this context refer to daydreaming or does
       | it refer to blanking out? As someone with late-diagnosed ADHD and
       | likely also on the spectrum, I find myself struggling with both
       | of these. I engage in a lot of Walter Mitty-esque hyper realistic
       | daydreams, but I also have random periods of minutes of
       | completely blank mind. Both result in a lot of "lost time" for me
       | throughout the day. It runs in my family such we refer to it as
       | "the our-surname fog".
       | 
       | Skimming this paper it's unclear to me whether the author is
       | referring to one or the other, or both.
       | 
       | Interestingly I'm not sure that the mind wandering is separable
       | from my creativity and problem solving. Often I'll come out of a
       | blank period with the answer to something without consciously
       | having been thinking about it. I think of these periods of "lost
       | time" in my day as background processing - it's just my
       | misfortune I live in a world where it's not socially or
       | economically acceptable to space out for long periods throughout
       | the day.
        
       | FailMore wrote:
       | Mind wandering (or more precisely the activation of the default
       | mode network) and dreaming are hugely linked. Interestingly the
       | "direction" of the mind wandering during rem sleep is the inverse
       | of anxious mind wandering. When we are anxious we have high
       | levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, but during rem
       | sleep it's 85% below _base_ waking levels.
       | 
       | In 2017 I wrote a paper discussing the implications for dream
       | content and functionality. Here is the link for it:
       | 
       | https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/k6trz
       | 
       | And it was discussed on HN here:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-21 23:00 UTC)