Four Top Reasons to Daydream Intentionally -- Starting Today
A daydream is much more than just a silly fantasy to keep you from getting bored at work. Following are some very real benefits that daydreaming has to offer, and if you’re interested in securing some of them for yourself, well, you know what to do.
Daydreaming can actually boost your creativity and improve your success!
1. Activate your brain’s “executive network.” - This is the area of your brain associated with high-level, complex problem-solving. According to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the less people were aware their minds were wandering, the more this “executive network,” and also the “default network” associated with easy, routine mental activity, were activated.
What this means is if you’re trying to solve a complicated problem, engaging yourself with a simple task, then letting your mind wander, may help.
2. Improve your relationships and social interactions - When you daydream, your ability to think abstractly flourishes. And most often, we think abstractly about “what if” scenarios relating to people and social situations in our lives, which may help you to be more empathetic in real life.
3. Boost your creativity - People who engage in more daydreaming score higher on experimental measures of creativity, according to research by Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
4. Increase your success - Daydreaming about achieving a particular goal you have, such as winning an upcoming marathon or getting into grad school, can actually help you achieve it. This type of daydreaming, sometimes called visualization, helps you to become more self-aware, and may actually count as “practice” to your brain that helps you during the actual event.
Interestingly, studies show the most beneficial type of daydream is the kind where you realize you’re doing it.
"Letting your mind drift off is the easy part. The hard part is maintaining enough awareness so that even when you start to daydream you can interrupt yourself and notice a creative insight,” Schooler told The Boston Globe.