It’s a good idea to put down your phone and let the reverie take over

Remember those days when you would look out the window and your mind would just wander away during class? Teachers would find it disobedient, but you couldn’t help it. It turns out we spend almost 50% of our lives daydreaming and there are a good deal of benefits to it, according to mental health experts.

So what exactly is daydreaming? While there are many types of daydreams, and no consistent definition among psychologists, one characteristic common to all forms of daydreaming can be defined as the stream of consciousness that detaches from the current tasks as the mind drifts to a more personal direction. Basically, it’s a trance you experience while you’re awake.

Gabriele Oettingen, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at New York University and author of Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation, explains that you can daydream about the past, about what’s happening in the present, but we often daydream about the future. “They are free thoughts and images, unconstrained from our experience.”

The Benefits of Daydreaming

Our brains aren’t wired to be focused all the time. Here are a few perks of daydreaming:

1/4 Daydreaming Uses Diverse Parts of Your Brain

Studies have found that wandering mental states activate different areas of the brain than those stimulated when a person is focused on a task. This daydreaming network is known as the default network. According to Eugenio M. Rothe, a psychiatrist at Florida International University, the ‘dialogue’ that occurs when the daydreaming mind cycles through different parts of the brain accesses information that was dormant or out of reach. Therefore, boredom or idleness serves a great purpose as it inspires us to daydream, which hammers out important connections across our brain.

2/4 Daydreaming Helps You Solve Problems

Daydreams allow you to come back to the problem with a fresh perspective, which is beneficial for many. Besides this, allowing your mind to roam freely seems to work better than trying to force a solution. Primarily, mind-wandering can lead you to a road of insights. So when you find yourself facing a problem, try daydreaming and you might find the perfect solution.

3/4 Daydreaming Expands Your Creativity

Do you ever notice some of your best ideas pop up in your head when you’re doing the simplest things, or in other words, when your mind is at ease? For instance, when you’re in the shower or doing the dishes, you suddenly think of the best solution to a problem you couldn’t seem to solve. According to a study done by UC Santa Barbara, they asked a control group to let their minds wander while trying to solve a creative task. It turned out they performed 41% better than the group that didn’t have the break.

4/4 Daydreaming Can Make You More Productive

Time and time again, studies have shown that breaks allow your brain and body to get the necessary recharge to keep going. When you focus on just one task that ends up exhausting you, it can negatively impact your long-term performance and mental health. Productivity is all about taking breaks—but what’s even better is to allow the mind to drift and take a micro-mind escape.