Is daydreaming good for you?

Is daydreaming good for you? Mostly, yes. It is one of the most ordinary things a human mind does, it seems to help with creative problems, and it is how we plan and rehearse. But it is not free: on average, a wandering mind is a slightly less happy one. The honest answer is that daydreaming is a tool, and like any tool it depends on when and how you use it.

This page is general information, not medical advice.

What is daydreaming?

Daydreaming is your attention drifting away from what is in front of you and onto thoughts of your own: memories, plans, conversations you wish you had had, scenes that will never happen. Psychologists usually call it mind-wandering, or “stimulus-independent thought”, meaning thought that is not about anything you are currently seeing or hearing.^[5]

It is extremely common. In a 2010 study, researchers built a smartphone app that pinged 2,250 adults at random moments and asked what they were doing, what they were thinking about and how they felt. People’s minds were wandering 46.9% of the time.^[1][2] In the researchers’ words, people think about what is not happening almost as often as about what is.

So if you daydream when you are bored, tired, stressed, driving a familiar road or listening to music, you are not doing anything unusual. Easy, familiar tasks leave spare attention, and the mind fills it.

What does daydreaming do to your brain?

It switches on a particular network of brain regions called the default mode network. In 2001, researchers described a “default mode” of brain function: a baseline state of the resting brain, including regions whose activity drops when people concentrate on a task.^[4] In 2007, a study in Science combined thought sampling with brain imaging and linked mind-wandering to activity in this network. People who reported a stronger tendency to let their minds wander also showed more activity in it.^[5]

So the “resting” brain is not switched off. When nothing outside demands your attention, a large system gets busy with whatever is going on inside. We cover the link with boredom in what boredom does to your brain.

Is daydreaming good or bad for you?

Both, depending on the moment. The case for daydreaming is strongest for creativity. In a 2012 study, people were given creative problems (thinking of unusual uses for everyday objects), then a break. Those who spent the break on an easy task that let their minds wander did substantially better when they returned to problems they had already seen, compared with people who did a demanding task, simply rested or had no break at all.^[3] The improvement went with more mind-wandering, not with more deliberate thinking about the problems.

The case against is mood. In the 2010 smartphone study, people were generally less happy when their minds were wandering than when they were not, across 22 everyday activities.^[2] Whether someone’s mind was wandering explained more of their happiness than what they were actually doing. The researchers’ time-lag analysis suggested the wandering tended to come first and the unhappiness after.^[2] Pleasant daydreams were the exception: people were no less happy during those, but no happier either.^[1]

Two caveats. These are averages, and the 2010 sample was people willing to install an app. And “less happy” was a modest dip, not distress. A sensible reading is this: let your mind wander during easy, low-stakes moments, especially when you are stuck on a problem, and be present for the things you actually want to enjoy.

How much daydreaming is normal?

A lot. With minds wandering in nearly half of all sampled moments,^[1] daydreaming every day, and many times a day, is the human default. There is no agreed “normal” number of minutes.

What matters more is how it feels and what it costs. People sometimes use the phrase “maladaptive daydreaming” for daydreaming that becomes compulsive, takes up hours and feels hard to stop. We are not going to define or diagnose that here. If your daydreaming is distressing, or it is taking over your days, work or relationships, speak to your GP.

Can daydreaming help you sleep or reduce stress?

We could not find good evidence either way, so we will not claim it. Some people find that drifting into a pleasant imagined scene helps them wind down; others find their minds wander straight to worries, which does the opposite. The 2010 study’s finding that pleasant daydreams were not linked to lower happiness, while neutral and unpleasant ones were,^[1] suggests that what you daydream about matters more than whether you do.

Why does my child daydream so much?

Because daydreaming is normal, and children are often in exactly the conditions that produce it. A task that is too easy, too hard or simply dull leaves attention free to drift. So does tiredness, hunger or a long stretch of sitting still. Many children also daydream because they enjoy it: an inner world is a pleasure, and imaginative play often carries on quietly in their heads.

A few gentle things can help in daily life:

• Check the task, not just the child. Is it pitched at the right level? A child who drifts off in maths but is absorbed in drawing is telling you something useful.
• Break things into shorter chunks, with a clear next step written down.
• Make sure sleep, food and movement are in decent shape before assuming anything else.
• Leave room for unstructured time. Daydreaming in the garden or on a walk is not the same as drifting off during instructions. Our guide on how to let your child be bored explains why that empty time matters.

What we will not do is tell you what a lot of daydreaming “means”. If a teacher has raised concerns about your child’s attention, or daydreaming is getting in the way of learning, friendships or safety (crossing roads, for example), talk to your GP or to the school’s SENCo (special educational needs coordinator). They can look at your child as a whole, which a web page cannot.

How do you stop daydreaming when you need to focus?

You do not need to stop daydreaming altogether, just at the moments that matter. Four things tend to help:

1. Notice and return. Drifting off is not failure. Catching it and coming back is the skill.
2. Make the task a little harder or more concrete. Taking notes, reading aloud or setting a small target gives attention something to hold.
3. Put the phone elsewhere. A wandering mind plus a phone within reach rarely wanders anywhere useful.
4. Schedule the wandering. Save a walk, a shower or a dull chore for when you are stuck on a problem, and let your mind do what the 2012 study suggests it does well.^[3]

Daydreaming is not a flaw to be engineered out. It is the mind using its spare room. The trick is choosing when to give it that room, and that is what How to Be Bored Again is about.