We're often happiest when we're lost in the moment. And the flip side: The more our mind wanders, the less happy we can be.
When are humans most happy? To gather data on this question, Matt Killingsworth built an app, Track Your Happiness, that let people report their feelings in real time.
Among the surprising results: We’re often happiest when we’re lost in the moment. And the flip side: The more our mind wanders, the less happy we can be.
Key Takeaways
The reasons we want a good job, big house or new car is because we expect them to bring happiness. The differences in happiness tend to be small, so what are the big causes of happiness?
Maybe happiness has an awful lot to do with the contents of our moment to moment experiences. What we’re doing, who we are with, what we are thinking about have a big influence on our happiness.
Mind Wandering as human beings we have this unique ability to stray our minds away from the present. This ability to focus our attention on something other than the present is amazing. It allows us to learn, plan and reason in ways that no other species of animal can. We can’t change the physical reality in front of us, but we can go anywhere in our minds.
- People are less happy when they are mind wandering, no matter what they’re doing.
- When our minds wander, we often think about unpleasant things such as our worries, anxiety or regrets.
- Even when people are thinking about something neutral or positive, they are still less happy than when they are not mind wandering at all.
- If mind wandering was a slot machine, it would be like losing $50, $20 or $1. You’d never want to play.