I recognize myself a lot in the "experiences happiness", as I have travelled a lot and it makes me very happy to think again about all these past experiences.
The thing I am more skeptical about is trying to avoid mind-wandering. I my personal experience, it was when I was mind-wandering (like when I am driving long distances for instance, as it does not use all my brain power but prevents me from doing something in parallel) that I got a lot of creative ideas. When I am hard-focused on something I sometimes don't think about non-conventional solutions to a problem I want to solve and then I get an idea when I am mind-wandering.
* On average, when humans do mind-wandering they tend to think more about unhappy events (aka "unpleasant mind wandering")
* Unpleasant mind wandering makes us unhappy (nothing surprising here) but even "neutral mind wandering" makes us less happy
* "Pleasant mind wandering" is okay
* The best in terms of happiness is still to be focused on the task you're doing and enjoy the present moment
However, I think this reasoning applies to tasks that normally require your attention. For instance when you're at work, if instead of writing your report you start thinking about something else, it's mind-wandering, and it'll probably be unpleasant (how bad your manager is, the unpleasant remark your colleague told you at lunch, how tired you are, etc.).
On the other hand, "Mind-wandering tends to occur when one is driving. This is because driving under optimal conditions becomes an almost automatic activity that can require minimal use of the task positive network,[2] the brain network that is active when one is engaged in an attention-demanding activity." (from Wikipedia) In this case, could we say that driving is almost equivalent to meditation? :) I don't know but that's how I feel about biking. I miss biking to go to work because it was a moment when I was disconnected from everything (mostly, my phone...), focused on the road and at the same time in my thoughts. Like in a meditative state?
I was expecting you to write such an article ;) Thank you for sharing those thoughts <3
I recognize myself a lot in the "experiences happiness", as I have travelled a lot and it makes me very happy to think again about all these past experiences.
The thing I am more skeptical about is trying to avoid mind-wandering. I my personal experience, it was when I was mind-wandering (like when I am driving long distances for instance, as it does not use all my brain power but prevents me from doing something in parallel) that I got a lot of creative ideas. When I am hard-focused on something I sometimes don't think about non-conventional solutions to a problem I want to solve and then I get an idea when I am mind-wandering.
Regarding mind-wandering, most of the research was done by Killingsworth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-wandering#Happiness
What I understood is:
* On average, when humans do mind-wandering they tend to think more about unhappy events (aka "unpleasant mind wandering")
* Unpleasant mind wandering makes us unhappy (nothing surprising here) but even "neutral mind wandering" makes us less happy
* "Pleasant mind wandering" is okay
* The best in terms of happiness is still to be focused on the task you're doing and enjoy the present moment
However, I think this reasoning applies to tasks that normally require your attention. For instance when you're at work, if instead of writing your report you start thinking about something else, it's mind-wandering, and it'll probably be unpleasant (how bad your manager is, the unpleasant remark your colleague told you at lunch, how tired you are, etc.).
On the other hand, "Mind-wandering tends to occur when one is driving. This is because driving under optimal conditions becomes an almost automatic activity that can require minimal use of the task positive network,[2] the brain network that is active when one is engaged in an attention-demanding activity." (from Wikipedia) In this case, could we say that driving is almost equivalent to meditation? :) I don't know but that's how I feel about biking. I miss biking to go to work because it was a moment when I was disconnected from everything (mostly, my phone...), focused on the road and at the same time in my thoughts. Like in a meditative state?