Focusing vs. Wandering

03/24/2014

Of course children benefit from positive feedback. But praise and rewards are not the only methods of reinforcement. More emphasis should be placed on appreciation-reinforcement related explicitly and directly to the content of the child's interest and efforts.
Lilian G. Katz

"Breathing In vs. Spacing Out: Is Mindfulness Always the Best?" is the title of a New York Times Magazine (January 19, 2014) article by Dan Hurley that explores the comparative advantages of being mindful — deliberately focusing on something — and letting your mind wander while engaged in a mindless task.

First he described results of a randomized trial showing that undergraduates instructed to spend a mere ten minutes a day practicing mindfulness ("the nonjudgmental observation of a person's breath, body, or just about anything else") made significant improvements on the verbal portion of the Graduate Record Exam and significantly increased their working memory capacity ("the ability to maintain and manipulate multiple items of attention").

However, he also noted that keeping the mind always focused through mindfulness could limit one's ability to let the mind wander. Citing another study, he noted "having participants spend a brief period of time on an undemanding task that maximizes mind wandering improved their subsequent performance on a test of creativity.... A third of the creative ideas they had during a two-week period came when their minds were wandering. And those ideas were more likely to be characterized as 'aha' insights that overcame an impasse."

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