Mind wandering: How to stop it?

Thought & physical reality: Today, we enjoy & experience in the physical reality many such things as mobile phone, house, car etc. Earlier, these were then just in the form of thoughts or imaginations in someone mind. Our thoughts or imaginations that we have in this present time will manifest physically as things or products in near future. An intense thought or an idea in the mind will turn into an innovative product in future. Such is the power of thoughts from the mind.

Imagine the thoughts are not cohesive in nature? We all have this experience in our daily life. No one is an exception to this experience. Only, the time & duration of this experience vary from person to person. When the thoughts are not cohesive and random in nature then we call that experience as “mind wandering”. If you open up the books of neuroscience, this is referred to as “Default network” of the brain.

Reason: Why we switch to this random mode? Let us understand the characteristics of the mind. Mind always revolve around a centre point which is nothing but your important, interesting and significant idea. When you don’t have this, your mind loses its centre point. You can always witness this behaviour of the mind especially in a scenario where you have nothing important to do. This is a right opportunity for the mind to roam around.

Random thoughts: Every thought is an electric impulse in the brain. Now, the technology has evolved to an extent where one can able to read this signal from the brain. So, thought is a form of energy. If we generate random thoughts then we waste our energy. In fact, brain alone consumes 20% of the total energy.

Organised thoughts: Organised thoughts occur when there is a strong presence of the centre point. If the centre point is based on negative emotions such as fear and worries then the thoughts are organised but work in a negative way. When the centre point is based on the positive emotion then the thoughts are again organised but work in a positive way.

So, it is not only important to have a centre point but make sure that it has a positive emotion attached to it. Future can be imagined and planned as it is yet to happen. So, we have the liberty.to think. It is our choice. We have the choice to imagine positively. When we set our goal knitted with the positive emotions, mind gets organised & work towards the goal.

So, here is my message!! Mind wanders in the absence of the direction. Direction can be set by the goals.

Simple strategy: Goals when knitted with the positive emotions give direction to the mind. Single stream of thoughts set by the goal is contemplation.

TO STOP THE WANDERING MIND, SET THE RIGHT LIFE GOALS KNITTED WITH THE POSITIVE EMOTIONS!!