Living in the Moment: A Wandering Mind is a Depressed Mind

[Celtaur]

Just read this article... I think there is truth to it.

I for one find that there are times when I'm not living in the moment, thinking about the past or the future excessively, it can be overwhelming.

Working and depression? Well, I can understand this if you don't love your job or are doing something purely for the money needed/survival/just making ends meet, etc. But if you're doing a job that you love, that's where I find I feel like I'm living in the moment many times. Focused, driven, attentive, interested, are all attributes I have found uplift my mood.

Resting... yes, I think that is when people are not engaged in something, yet are not tired to give them a reason to rest, they may get depressed... probably because the mind will wander to the past or future.

The problem with the mind wandering, I find is it globalizes, and starts to become overwhelmed, or I've found I've personally felt guilty or overwhelmed by what I'm not doing and what needs to be done, then it just leads to thinking in the future or past and not in the moment, which sometimes leads to procrastination, which brings the whole cycle full circle.

Luckily though, when I engage in something, feel like I'm productive and contributing to a vision or goal my spirits are uplifted immensely.

Interestingly I hear a lot of people say things like they watch tv to get their mind off their problems. I think what's happening with that is the mind is focused and not wandering. The person is thinking about what's on tv, instead of having their mind jump from problem to problem, responsibility to responsibility etc.

One way I've found that helps when there are a lot of responsibilities and things to do, to keep the mind from wandering, getting overwhelmed and repeating things again and again to remind yourself of what you need to do is to write it down... get it out of your brain and onto the paper so you don't have to keep thinking about it. It's quite freeing.

Maybe you should listen to that yoga teacher who counsels you to stay in the moment.

A US study out Thursday suggests that people spend about half of their time thinking about being somewhere else, or doing something other than what they are doing, and this perpetual act of mind-wandering makes them unhappy.

"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind," wrote psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University in the journal Science.

"The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost."

The study tracked 2,250 people via the trendy iPhone gadgets using an application, or app, that contacted volunteers at "random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or something else that was pleasant, neutral or unpleasant."

When the results were tallied, people had answered that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of the time.

Subjects reported being happiest while having sex, exercising or having a conversation. They reported being least happy while using a home computer, resting or working.

By examining the mind-wandering responses, researchers found that "only 4.6 percent of a person's happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person's mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness."

The study said "time-lag analyses" suggested that "subjects' mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness."

Subjects tended to be most focused on the present, and least prone to mind-wandering, during sex, the study noted. During every other activity, minds were wandering no less than 30 percent of the time.

Seventy-four percent of those followed in the study were American, the researchers said, adding that the subjects came from a "wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations."

"Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people's happiness," said Killingsworth.

"This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present."

The application is available at www.trackyourhappiness.org.

Article Link

I think the gist of this article is... have more sex and you'll be happier because you'll be living in the moment more

[EyeCanBlackStars]

Depression is due to lack of kindness and lack of self dependency or control of territory. When the liver space land is small but the condensing tail of mind is large, it is too large the mind warps at the edges and becomes too high in the middle. Also if there is improper Will, the Will land dam structure causes build up in the streams of Presence, and the Presence becomes too big without anywhere to go, so it spills out into places you can't control and cannot feel stimulus from.

So best thing do to is get more responsibility and keep your mind where one can see things to be done.