This week I reign in the mind wandering
Back when I edited a women’s magazine I learned very quickly that a lot of women worry that when they’re having sex they’re thinking about the washing in the tub that needs to be hung out, or the pork in the freezer that needs to be defrosted, or whether they have time to get their legs waxed on the way to their 11am meeting on Friday. As if mouldy washing isn’t enough to worry about, they worry that they’re worrying instead of being carried away in full orgasmic flight.
But hark! happiness expert and Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert this month released a much-hyped study on distractedness and found that we’re less distracted while having sex than while doing any other activity. The study used iPhone app trackyourhappiness to interrupt 2200 participants in the middle of everyday activities to track their emotions and focus. It found our minds wander 47 per cent of our waking lives, but only 10 per cent of the time when we’re getting jiggy with it (which begs, who answers their buzzing iphone app while having sex?!).
The study also found we’re happiest while having sex. And concludes happiness is inversely proportional to how much our mind wanders. So much so, that it doesn’t really matter what we do, so long as we don’t daydream while doing it.
To bundle it up into a catchphrase: you stray, you pay. Or to use the quasi-spiritual (slightly passive-aggressive?) parlance of our day: Babe, you really need to learn to live in the moment, like, now.
But how!? Psychologists, scientists, doctors and spiritualists agree living in the now works; it’s the method that eludes.