Mindful reflection is essential to our overall well-being and ability to make meaning of the world around us.

The pace of life seems to accelerate with every passing day. There never seems to be any time to take a few precious moments for ourselves to just be - away from work, family and friends. While moments for reflection may be hard to come by, a new article suggests that the long-lost art of introspection (even daydreaming) may be an increasingly valuable part of life.

In recent years, researchers have explored the idea of rest by looking at the so-called default mode network of the brain. This refers to a network that is noticeably active when we are resting and focused inward. Mindful reflection is essential to our ability to make meaning of the world around us. Inward attention is an important contributor to the development of moral thinking and reasoning and is linked with overall socioemotional well-being.

The Art Of Inward Attention

“We focus on the outside world in education and don’t look much at inwardly focused reflective skills and attentions, but inward focus impacts the way we build memories, make meaning and transfer that learning into new contexts,” says Dr. Immordino-Yang, a professor of education, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California. “What are we doing in schools to support kids turning inward?” Their research will be published in the July issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science.

The growing research suggests that the networks that underlie a focus inward versus outward likely are linked to each other and interdependent. Our ability to regulate and move between them probably improves with maturity and practice. While outward attention is essential for carrying out tasks and learning from classroom lessons, for example, the reflection and consolidation that may accompany mind wandering is equally important, fostering healthy development and learning in the longer term.

“Balance is needed between outward and inward attention, since time spent mind wandering, reflecting and imagining may also improve the quality of outward attention that kids can sustain,” says Immordino-Yang.

The Implications For Children

Immordino-Yang and her colleagues worry that the high attention demands of fast-paced urban and digital environments may be systematically undermining opportunities for young people to look inward and reflect, and that this could have negative effects on their psychological development. This is especially true in an age when social media seems to be a constant presence in teens’ day-to-day lives.

“Consistently imposing overly high-attention demands on children, either in school, through entertainment, or through living conditions, may rob them of opportunities to advance from thinking about ‘what happened’ or ‘how to do this’ to constructing knowledge about ‘what this means for the world and for the way I live my life,’ ” Immordino-Yang writes.

According to the authors, perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn from research on the brain at rest is the fact that all rest is not idleness. While some might be inclined to view rest as a wasted opportunity for productivity, the authors suggest that constructive internal reflection is critical for learning from past experiences and appreciating their value for future choices, allowing us to understand and manage ourselves in the social world.

July 3, 2012
The Healthy Mind Network
 

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