A new study found that deliberate daydreaming is associated with a thicker cortex (which is good) in certain key areas of the brain.
Guiding the mind towards wandering is a cognitive skill that can be helpful in some contexts. For example, it can allow us to mentally rehearse upcoming events or solve problems we may face. In other words, it allows the brain to design a possible future for us.
So, mind-wandering is not always a rejection of self-control, which is inevitably associated with mistakes. The question is whether your mind-wandering is intentional or not.
Dr. Johannes Holchert, the first author of the study, said: “We have found that in people who often purposefully let their minds go into daydreams, the cerebral cortex is thicker in some prefrontal areas. Moreover, we found that in such people two main brain networks overlap: the network, which is active when focusing on information from memory, and the fronto-parietal network, which stabilizes our attention.
This study found that people's brains were thicker in this region when they reported the ability to deliberately make their minds wander.
However, people who reported spontaneous mental wandering had thinner cerebral cortex in this area.
Thus, daydreaming is not necessarily a sign of impaired cognitive control. Intelligent wanderings of the mind should not be viewed as disturbing. If you are able to control it to some extent, that is, suppress it when necessary and allow it to work when possible, then you can make the most of it.
The study was published in the journal Neuroimage.
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