Durban - Most people think of rest as the times when we stop work or movement in order to relax, sleep, or recover strength.
But historians and anthropologists have discovered that what counts as rest has varied a lot over time and across cultures.
To better understand what rest is, an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Durham University, launched the world’s largest study, called the Rest Test, an online survey to investigate people’s resting habits and attitudes towards relaxation and busyness.
Do people think rest is the opposite of work? What activities are the most restful? What are people’s inner experiences when they are “at rest”, and does having more rest make you feel better?
The default mode
If you mention rest, people tend to think of bodily rest. But, as anyone who has ever experienced his or her mind whirring before sleep knows, physical rest can sometimes be far from restful.
One curious finding shedding new light on the concept of “rest” that has emerged from cognitive neuroscience is the idea of the resting state of the brain; that when our bodies are still our minds remain active. Remarkably consistent patterns of brain activation have been found in a constellation of brain regions – collectively termed “the default mode network” – when people are supposedly “doing nothing” during brain imaging studies.
The default mode network has been closely linked to states of daydreaming and mind wandering leading to suggestions that daydreaming may be the default mode of thought. (Daydreams are thoughts people have that aren’t tied to the external environment or whatever they’re doing.)
Thinking about an e-mail you need to reply to when you’re reading this article, mentally planning your day on the work commute, or thinking about an argument with a loved one during a meeting, are all examples of daydreaming, which often occurs spontaneously.
Consistent with the idea that daydreaming represents a mental baseline, several investigations have shown that people’s minds tend to wander at fairly consistent rates of between 30 percent and 50 percent of the time. Most convincingly, a large scale investigation sampling 2 250 people’s daydreams with a cellphone app as they went about their lives, revealed that people were daydreaming on 47 percent of occasions they were polled. Daydreaming rates were a consistent 30 percent across a range of 22 activities, except having sex, where the rate of daydreaming was considerably lower.
The downside
Considering we spend roughly a third of life asleep, this means we might spend nearly as much time daydreaming as we do sleeping.
Daydreaming is very common, yet people tend to have negative perceptions of it. Pejorative terms as “off with the fairies” and “zoning out” label daydreaming as futile, and daydreamers as lazy, inattentive and dissatisfied with life.
A recent review of daydreaming research shows its negative effects on a variety of tasks such as reading, attention, and memory.
Daydreaming behind the wheel might also represent a risk for road traffic accidents. Research published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) showed 52 percent of drivers involved in accidents reported daydreaming before crashing.
Daydreaming has been associated with lower levels of happiness leading to the claim that a “wandering mind is an unhappy mind”.
The benefits
Emerging research has started to shine a spotlight on the benefits of daydreaming. For example, daydreaming has been linked to greater creativity, the ability to delay gratification, problem-solving, and planning.
Several studies show a person’s mood following daydreaming depends on the content of their thoughts. For instance, daydreaming is only associated with negative mood when the content of thought is also negative and ruminative.
Other research points to the benefits of daydreaming and imagination. Asking people to engage in “positive mental time travel”, in which they imagine four positive events that will take place the following day, increases levels of happiness. Likewise, new research suggests that daydreaming of loved ones might be an antidote to loneliness, fostering feelings of social connection.
Daydreaming might even be restful – an escape from the external present. Daydreaming has been suggested as a way of taking mental breaks when we’re doing everyday tasks; a way of refreshing our attention. People might enjoy daydreaming and use it for comfort, entertainment, and relief from distress.
Don’t be here now
Daydreaming isn’t all bad, despite its commonly held negative effects. We are frequently reminded of the benefits of “being in-the-moment” which has been reflected in the widespread interest and popularity of mindfulness and the need to “still the mind”.
The benefits and its connection with rest are likely to depend on the content and the context in which it occurs. For example, a busy mind full with thoughts of tomorrow’s tasks won’t be conducive to a restful night’s sleep. Rather than representing a meaningless mental meandering, daydreaming has the power to benefit our lives in many ways.
