Daydreaming Can Be Good For You

Here is how fantasizing during the day can improve your life

We are living in a very fast-paced world in 21 century. Many people, especially in their career age, have a plan for each hour of the day. It’s all because of our economic circumstances. We just handled the corona crisis, yet experts estimate that we will feel the effects of the pandemic for years.

That’s why especially Millennials (people of working age) are extremely anxious about their future. They are already poorer than previous generations, and it could be even worse because of the pandemic.

They are in a rush, working hard, and think of daydreaming as a complete waste of time. And, let’s be real, long hours of fantasizing instead of working during the day are harmful. Yet, as Oscar Wilde famously said:

Everything in moderation, including moderation

What is daydreaming? Let’s look at the definition from Cambridge Dictionary:

a series of pleasant thoughts about something you would prefer to be doing or something you would like to achieve in the future

The definition automatically suggests that it’s something unproductive. And it is, as daydreaming takes our attention from the present moment into the world of dreams. Yet, it’s no entirely harmful.

The most important thing we have to understand that we can’t be productive all the time. There is evidence that we can be productive for between 45–52 minutes, and then we should take a 15 minutes break.

So you will take a break whether you like it or not. Of course, you can push yourself to focus more than 45–52 minutes, but it will be ineffective, and your brain will find a way to take a break anyway. So before you will lose consciousness and start watching funny cats on YouTube, you can pause the work and use the break, e.g., for daydreaming.

Fantasies Can Increase Motivation Towards Goals

David B. Feldman’s study from 2012 study compared two groups of students. The first group took a daydream session towards achieving a certain goal, and the second group was a control group. The results:

Participants in the hope intervention showed increases in measures of hope, life purpose, and vocational calling. They also reported greater progress on a self-nominated goal at a one-month follow-up.

It works because of our human nature, and we are quite weird, or rather our brains. We have a survival mechanism within us that keeps us on our toes. We are constantly worrying about the future outcome. Nothing happens to us, yet we are anxious — that is so human.

Yet, by daydreaming, where we imagine accomplishing a goal, we finally think positively about the outcome. Thanks to that, we change the thought: “I have to move because I won’t have anything to eat” to “I want to move to accomplish the goal.” That’s a positive change.

Just as Tony Robbins once said:

Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited of what could go right

Daydreaming Can Help in Developing Empathy

I’m a big fan of fairy tales as they hold lots of wisdom. For example, Mark Twain, in 1881, wrote a story called The Prince and the Pauper, which is a base for various films and animation up to this day.

Mark Twain’s concept is to create a story of people born the same day and look the same but live in completely different circumstances. Then, the author letting them switch places to help them understand another perspective.

I remember some fairy tale from my childhood that showed a princess and daughter of the farmer. The princess was looking at the village and wonder: “How great it would be to born as an unknown farmer’s daughter.” At the same time, the farmer’s daughter was looking at the castle and wonder: “how great it would be to be a famous princess.”

One day they met, and it turned out that they look the same. They decided to switch places and then understand that their lives are hard but in other areas. In the end, they backed to their old lives with a smile and lots of wisdom. In this way, the fairy tale helping young people developing empathy.

And that is what we lose as adults. With age, we develop some worldview and get rid of anything that disagrees with it only to protect our peace of mind. That’s why we live in a cold world with very little understanding of other people’s lives — we lack empathy.

Daydreaming gives us a chance to imagine someone’s else perspective, so the chance to wonder why a given person acted this way or another. That could improve our relationships and a general understanding of human nature by putting ourselves in someone’s shoes.

Daydreaming Can Boost Creativity

We spend from 25% to 50% of waking hours on daydreaming, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we constantly boost creativity. Many of our daydreams are very simple, like “what I need to buy in the grocery store.” It’s rather a form of visualization or planning our lives than actual dreaming.

The study shows that people who were daydream about, e.g., important life events reported increased inspiration at the end of the day. And people that were fantasizing during the day reported an increased level of creativity.

So, it’s good to let our minds wander during the day for a while, especially if we are working in a creative field. Yet, we have to be very careful not to overuse daydreaming as a form of escaping the tough reality, so escapism.

Escapism is the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy.

So, yet another time — everything in moderation.

Daydreaming Is like a Workout for Our Brain

Our muscle grows when we effort, which destroys the current muscles and builds stronger, bigger ones. Likewise, our brain changes in certain ways during daydreaming, so it does a little training.

A study shows that when we daydream, we actively increase our working memory. Such a type of memory is important as it let us process information while not losing track of what we are doing. It’s like a short note in our brain.

This way, daydreaming increases our ability to keep focus. Because the more working memory we have, the more information we can process without losing focus on the task. Such ability in today’s world, where we are constantly bombarded with information from all sides, seems crucial.

It’s a very simple activity because you have just to sit, lose focus, and the mind starts doing its things. So, it’s better to daydream, at least for a while, than unconsciously turning on TV series or start scrolling Facebook.

We should add “let the mind wander” to the list of our daily tasks.

The Takeaway

So, like everything else, daydreaming is a tool, and the outcome depends on how we use the tool. It could be either a distraction or positive procrastination. This way, it could either let us escape tough reality or be a tool to boost creativity, inspiration and recharge the ability to focus.

For me, daydreaming is an everyday activity since I was a child, and even before I did a comprehensive research on the article, I knew that it has benefits. Many times, after letting my mind wander, I sat and wrote an article in one take.

Daydreaming could be a relieving activity for people who are overly involved in the economic environment. It could help relieve stress or inspire by unplugging from the constant problems, competition, race, etc.

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