The Wandering Mind

My best ideas seem to surface when I'm working on an illustration, cutting the grass, vacuuming, walking the dogs or playing Snood.

And a couple of rounds of good coffee after a good night's sleep are always a good idea.

By most measures, we spend about a third of our time daydreaming, yet our brain is unusually active during these seemingly idle moments. Left to its own devices, our brain activates several areas associated with complex problem solving, which researchers had previously assumed were dormant during daydreams. Moreover, it appears to be the only time these areas work in unison.

"People assumed that when your mind wandered it was empty," says cognitive neuroscientist Kalina Christoff at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who reported the findings last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As measured by brain activity, however, "mind wandering is a much more active state than we ever imagined, much more active than during reasoning with a complex problem."

The above is from Robert Lee Hotz latest article: A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight in the Science Journal from the Wallstreet Journal. It's a really insightful read that goes great with morning coffee and Cliff Kuang's recent Fasct Company piece:Hard Work's Overrated, Maybe Detrimental.

That's Right,

HMK