Usually we feel unhappy whenever our mind wanders, which happens about 46.9% of the time of our waking hours. We feel happy and alive during sex, physical exercises and when communicating with other people, claim experts from Harvard University.
Whenever we are resting, using a computer or working, we feel the most unhappy. This is due to the fact that we are the only mammals on the planet who spend so much time thinking about the things happening around us.
We constantly think about past events, possible events in the future or things which may never happen, but which interest us.
Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert used an Internet app to gather 250 000 points of data on the feelings, thoughts and actions which excite people every day.
They claim that the human mind begins to wander because of so much thinking and it is exactly that, no matter how strange it may sound, which makes us truly unhappy.
The ability to think about something that is not happening at a given moment is a mental achievement, but our emotions suffer from it.
The researchers questioned 2250 participants in the experiment, which were between the ages of 18 and 88, after certain intervals of time, in order to understand their level of happiness.
They found out what the participants intended to do at a given moment, whether they were concentrating on their actions at the moment or something else, which was unpleasant for them.
The researchers offered 22 types of activities, which included watching TV, doing physical exercises, eating and shopping.
It became evident that the participants spent 46.9% of their time thinking. In fact, no matter what they chose to do, excluding sex, their thoughts wandered in 30% of the cases. From there came the researchers' conclusion that we concentrate our brain activity when making love.
According to the experts, our mental life is mostly filled with that which is not happening. The wandering of our thoughts in some way predicts our happiness. In actuality, how often our thoughts leave the present and their direction predict whether we will feel happy, no matter what type of activity we participate in.
According to the results from the studies, our deep thoughts make us feel unhappy, and are not a result of misfortunes, except in some rare cases. Many philosophical and religious ideas teach us that happiness can be found by living in the moment, and he who practices these teachings learns to resist the wandering of their mind.
