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.
> The change in clarity of mind and focus were life changing to me.
Feeling smart != being smart. I was once doing a water fast for a week and felt rather enlightened after a few days, like any problem would be easy. Upon trying to churn on some more advanced math proofs and programming stuff, it seemed to actually be harder than it would usually be. In fact I quickly decided that my time would be better spent walking around outside in the woods.
Fasting isn't really the same as keto of course. But I wonder if there are actual studies proving an increase in problem solving skills during something like a ketogenic diet or similar.
Like many psychedelic users can attest to. The mindset of enlightenment is just another mindset that can be produced by the brain by doing the appropriate actions
For me, I get drunk and I start to feel really smart and enlightened, however next day I usually cringe, but who knows maybe it was the drunk me that was the smart one and the cringing me is just too narrow minded and judgmental.
That. Joscha Bach pretty much summarized the problem with just one word: Overfitting. I've since spotted the pattern several times. People going all in on psychedelics, seeing them as the solution to almost everything. Leary and McKenna starting a cult. Esp. McKenna and the true hallucination story make it pretty obvious that these two brothers overdid it so much that they couldn't just leave it behind, they had to follow up and supposedly go deep on that stuff.
I can't say I get smarter, but I have very vivid memories of after-fasting days, and in the morning it was really easy to focus on anything I would choose to focus on, the mind would be extremely concentrated and still.
If you feel comfortable sharing, what is the meditation technique you practice? I am a Vipassana practitioner and found your observation to be anecdotally true - the commonly stated reasoning for the prescribed diet in a Vipassana course is that it minimizes the amount of blood diverted from other organs (i.e. the brain) to aid in digestion.
In any case, I found your statement "nothing to lose and could always return to my previous, though less-than-optimal, lifestyle" quite inspiring - thank you!
> 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
Gosh! Another self-help book to "cure" my ADHD and depression! /s
Sarcasm aside, we already have cures for these disorders. It's absolutely insulting to struggle for decades dealing with mental health problems, for the medical industry to hold the cure (which, incidentally, is also the key to allowing you to perform a lot of self-care steps which would improve your mental health), and to then be told that — no, you won't receive the cure because you're not our "ideal patient" so, instead, maybe try and bang your head against this self-help book that "cures" the disease. Obviously, the disease will be cured if you just try hard enough! Or if you just, idk, Cope With It.
The majority of self-help books exist to generate money and only end up reinforcing the point of view that if you are struggling with mental illness it must be your fault. They take the burden off the rotting, decrepit husk of capitalism and put the burden back on to you. "Oh, you have struggled every day of your life with X? Ah, but this self-help book solves X, so if it doesn't work that must be your fault and you need to struggle harder with the methods in the self-help book!"
That feels right. And it's good news too. I think I need to make some kind of similar change and for similar reasons and I'd really not like to eat and much meat as it takes to maintain ketosis. But there are a lot of ways to be blood-sugar-aware...
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.
For me, undirected mind wandering (daydreaming, background processing, actual dreaming and similar states) seems to be the best source of creative thought as well as flashes of insight. And semi-directed mind wandering (brainstorming as well as random walks down pathways of thought) seems to be essential to problem solving.
However, schools and workplaces rarely appreciate any form of thinking that doesn't produce immediate tangible output with some kind of economic value.
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.
And a lot of what ACT does happens to echo what Buddhists are trying to do in meditation.
Maybe the most important aspect of mind wandering -- ie distraction -- is: what pushes us off track? In my experience, that's often a feeling of discomfort that is tied to the anticipated pain of a task. Sometimes that pain is tedium (I know what must be done and don't want to do it), other times it's complexity (I know I must do something but the exact steps are not clear), and other times it's sheer difficulty; ie I'm not breaking the task down into small enough chunks to feel able to do them.
I'm looking for my own internal protocol to sense mind wandering, identify which type of perceived difficulty caused it, and then take the steps to stay on goal: if tedium, put on podcast and forge forth; if complexity, back up and unravel the vague aspiration; if sheer difficulty, break it down into small steps.
I feel like the very ability to slip into metacognitive reflection depends heavily on my overall state, whether I'm doing all the right things like sleeping and exercising in order to monitor the internal course of work.
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:
What does it feel like to have a mind that doesn't (or only minimally) wander? I find it hard to imagine such a state. Would it even be psychologically healthy?
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."
After skimming the article, I found it unconvincing. It feels poorly structured, almost like something a high school student might put together for a monograph. The references seem to be there to add a sense of authority, but they lack clarity. Who exactly is the article referring to? Is it talking about all human beings, specific types of people like artists, or perhaps Einstein when he was daydreaming?
There are plenty of successful people who possess this trait the article critiques, which makes me wonder if one strong counterexample is enough to challenge the entire premise. In my view, the argument lacks depth and fails to consider broader, real-world examples.
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!
> The change in clarity of mind and focus were life changing to me.
Feeling smart != being smart. I was once doing a water fast for a week and felt rather enlightened after a few days, like any problem would be easy. Upon trying to churn on some more advanced math proofs and programming stuff, it seemed to actually be harder than it would usually be. In fact I quickly decided that my time would be better spent walking around outside in the woods.
Fasting isn't really the same as keto of course. But I wonder if there are actual studies proving an increase in problem solving skills during something like a ketogenic diet or similar.
> Feeling smart != being smart
Like many psychedelic users can attest to. The mindset of enlightenment is just another mindset that can be produced by the brain by doing the appropriate actions
There are is an unfortunately large proportion of them that are fooled by the emotion and believe it.
For me, I get drunk and I start to feel really smart and enlightened, however next day I usually cringe, but who knows maybe it was the drunk me that was the smart one and the cringing me is just too narrow minded and judgmental.
It really depends on the task, some people are better at speaking a foreign language after they've had a few drinks.
oh, so that's why they become less intelligible to their native friends!
That. Joscha Bach pretty much summarized the problem with just one word: Overfitting. I've since spotted the pattern several times. People going all in on psychedelics, seeing them as the solution to almost everything. Leary and McKenna starting a cult. Esp. McKenna and the true hallucination story make it pretty obvious that these two brothers overdid it so much that they couldn't just leave it behind, they had to follow up and supposedly go deep on that stuff.
My ability to focus deeper and for a longer period of time increased substantially - I'm afraid my IQ is still the same ;)
I can't say I get smarter, but I have very vivid memories of after-fasting days, and in the morning it was really easy to focus on anything I would choose to focus on, the mind would be extremely concentrated and still.
If you feel comfortable sharing, what is the meditation technique you practice? I am a Vipassana practitioner and found your observation to be anecdotally true - the commonly stated reasoning for the prescribed diet in a Vipassana course is that it minimizes the amount of blood diverted from other organs (i.e. the brain) to aid in digestion.
In any case, I found your statement "nothing to lose and could always return to my previous, though less-than-optimal, lifestyle" quite inspiring - thank you!
> 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?
https://brainenergy.com
Gosh! Another self-help book to "cure" my ADHD and depression! /s
Sarcasm aside, we already have cures for these disorders. It's absolutely insulting to struggle for decades dealing with mental health problems, for the medical industry to hold the cure (which, incidentally, is also the key to allowing you to perform a lot of self-care steps which would improve your mental health), and to then be told that — no, you won't receive the cure because you're not our "ideal patient" so, instead, maybe try and bang your head against this self-help book that "cures" the disease. Obviously, the disease will be cured if you just try hard enough! Or if you just, idk, Cope With It.
The majority of self-help books exist to generate money and only end up reinforcing the point of view that if you are struggling with mental illness it must be your fault. They take the burden off the rotting, decrepit husk of capitalism and put the burden back on to you. "Oh, you have struggled every day of your life with X? Ah, but this self-help book solves X, so if it doesn't work that must be your fault and you need to struggle harder with the methods in the self-help book!"
It’s not a self-help book, it’s an evidence based technical book. Please don’t be a troll.
Do you have any thoughts about the possibility that it wasn't ketosis but instead just a lack of gluten?
I've not tried either but I've heard the same result attributed to making both changes (hard to know because they tend to coincide).
I think the main issue is the unhealthy up and down insulin spikes caused by modern high carbs diets.
That feels right. And it's good news too. I think I need to make some kind of similar change and for similar reasons and I'd really not like to eat and much meat as it takes to maintain ketosis. But there are a lot of ways to be blood-sugar-aware...
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.
What is "monkey mind"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_mind
more broadly , the difference between reacting and responding to a stimulus
For me, undirected mind wandering (daydreaming, background processing, actual dreaming and similar states) seems to be the best source of creative thought as well as flashes of insight. And semi-directed mind wandering (brainstorming as well as random walks down pathways of thought) seems to be essential to problem solving.
However, schools and workplaces rarely appreciate any form of thinking that doesn't produce immediate tangible output with some kind of economic value.
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.
My personal goal is to make my mental happenings more visible in order to understand where I get off track while tackling a task.
I think knowledge work in general is plagued by the intangibility of the processes that lead to its artifacts.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has a few things to say about this. (Here's Jonathan Bricker's TedX talk for a glimpse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTb3d5cjSFI&themeRefresh=1)
And a lot of what ACT does happens to echo what Buddhists are trying to do in meditation.
Maybe the most important aspect of mind wandering -- ie distraction -- is: what pushes us off track? In my experience, that's often a feeling of discomfort that is tied to the anticipated pain of a task. Sometimes that pain is tedium (I know what must be done and don't want to do it), other times it's complexity (I know I must do something but the exact steps are not clear), and other times it's sheer difficulty; ie I'm not breaking the task down into small enough chunks to feel able to do them.
I'm looking for my own internal protocol to sense mind wandering, identify which type of perceived difficulty caused it, and then take the steps to stay on goal: if tedium, put on podcast and forge forth; if complexity, back up and unravel the vague aspiration; if sheer difficulty, break it down into small steps.
I feel like the very ability to slip into metacognitive reflection depends heavily on my overall state, whether I'm doing all the right things like sleeping and exercising in order to monitor the internal course of work.
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
Interesting that they mentioned the default-mode network but not the salience network
I experience mind-wandering as sampling salience signals when no signals dominate (as they do in reactivity and goal- or motor-planning).
Mind-wandering presents unlike meditative absorption, when salience seems quiescent (or, conversely but rarely, sharp).
What does it feel like to have a mind that doesn't (or only minimally) wander? I find it hard to imagine such a state. Would it even be psychologically healthy?
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...
I'm so confused. I'm trying to understand what is wrong with mind wandering but to me it doesn't seem clear.
Check this: Why Mind Wandering Can Be So Miserable — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-mind-wande...
After skimming the article, I found it unconvincing. It feels poorly structured, almost like something a high school student might put together for a monograph. The references seem to be there to add a sense of authority, but they lack clarity. Who exactly is the article referring to? Is it talking about all human beings, specific types of people like artists, or perhaps Einstein when he was daydreaming?
There are plenty of successful people who possess this trait the article critiques, which makes me wonder if one strong counterexample is enough to challenge the entire premise. In my view, the argument lacks depth and fails to consider broader, real-world examples.
I thought it was written by scientistic 1960s psychologists but it is actually from 2018, peak CBT pseudoscience.