For the past few minutes, I have been trying to control the weather with my mind. Thanks to an EEG headband reading my brain’s electrical activity, I need only direct my thoughts to a calmer place and the rain will stop, the sun will come out and the birds will sing – at least on my smartphone. But the harder I try, the harder it pours.
The device I am using, called Muse, promises to tame the wandering mind, and so reduce stress and boost focus. Our wandering minds tend to make most of us feel guilty. “We have anecdotal evidence that most people think they mind-wander more than average,” says of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Schooler has attempted to assess “normal” levels of mind-wandering in the lab by, for example, getting people to and interrupting them to ask their thoughts at random intervals. Such studies reveal we spend anywhere between 15 and 50 per cent of the time with our head in the clouds.
Such a lack of focus might seem terribly inefficient, but probably isn’t. “It’s unproductive in the context of whatever you are doing currently,” says Schooler. “However, it is potentially productive in the context of whatever it is you’re thinking about. You might be reading a book and thinking about planning a party, and it’s totally compromising your ability to read the book, but you’re making progress on the party.” There is good evidence that a wandering mind is an evolved trait that helps us to think about and plan for the future – something that…
