Making the most of a wandering mind - change your mood by heading towards the future not the past

The thing about the mind is that it never stops thinking.  If you aren't focused on a task, the chances are your mind is wandering off at a tangent.  Even when you try to focus on a task it tends to do just that.  And unless it does this productively, by coming up with a new idea associated with what you are doing, it will be in fact detrimentally affecting your performance. You'll make errors.

You'll also be less happy for this.

'Mind Wandering' (especially when it is concerned with thoughts that have no bearing on your current task) lowers the mood.  You'll have expended extra energy sustaining the spiral of thoughts when you could have profitably put that energy to getting a satisfying job done.

There's a good chance that the contents of your thoughts involve the past.  The most significant incidence of lowered mood in mind wandering relates to thinking about the past. Yet interestingly, 'prospective' mind wandering - i.e. thinking about the future - can actually associate with raises in mood, reduce cortisol levels in response to stress and at the very  least offset the negative impact of thinking about the past. Brain science attests to this.  

At the heart of what I 'do' is attempting to 'neuro-engineer' solutions to improve and 'optimise' mental performance, elevate mood and gain greater 'self' control that can help manage (and harness) stress in relation to life's circumstances and the environment in which we operate day to day...

Simple concepts can be employed based on understanding how the brain works as a 'machine' with various parts and functions which interact, connect, and importantly disconnect.  So a tip for today that utilises some understanding of brain functioning involves shifting the arrow of time if you catch yourself ruminating, feeling a little downcast.  You can take stock of your mental operating system, check in to monitor if you have bccome lost in a train of thought, and note if it is directed towards the past.  Halt the train in it's tracks, or more accurately, turn it around using the momentum it has already gathered, and direct it towards the future!