The Dark Side of Mind Wandering and How To Stop It

Turns out that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind

Excessive mind-wandering has consistently been shown to correlate with mental conditions such as anxiety, OCD, depression, ADHD, and general unhappiness. To put it simply, the more time we are spending in our heads, the greater the likelihood that we will suffer. From personal experience, I can vouch for this.

Our minds are naturally inclined to think more negatively than positively. Evolutionarily speaking, this served a purpose. To keep our minds switched on to the swathes of potential threats our ancestors were susceptible to. Much has changed since our ancestors’ days of fending off wild animals but our brains have remained relatively the same. Despite most of us not having to worry about life-threatening predators eating us, there is arguably more stress than ever on the human mind in the form of emotional stress.

Indeed, we as humans in the 21st century are bombarded by negativity from large-scale macro problems like pandemics, climate change, political issues, and social injustices to the micro problems of our day-to-day lives including our career goals, social dilemmas, and health problems. One only has to turn on the news or spend 10 minutes thinking about their life to find a potential problem to worry about.