So close to half of the people in any group are off inside their minds wandering at any given time. According to a new study (see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/science/16tier.html) when the mind wanders, happiness can stray too.

Now, if someone’s doing something that makes them feel good you would expect them to have wandering thoughts that are also feel-good type thoughts . . . nope. The study found that whether or not they are engaged in a pleasant activity does not affect the pleasantness of their wandering thoughts. When they lose focus they can drift off into negative territory.

One noteworthy exception . . . people having sex tend to wander into positive thoughts rather than negative ones. On a humorous note, I suspect they discounted the guys who do math while having sex in order to stave off ejaculating too soon. 🙂

Now, as hypnotists . . . when working with folks who have issues based upon constant negative thoughts, it’s useful to know this tendency toward wandering minds . . . and give your clients skills for refocusing and to minimize the effect a random negative thought might have. Some folks who have a random negative thought then fixate on that emotion . . . this is Bad Thyng with a capital Bad. Rather they need to reframe their experience so that they can reroute to a positive emotional state quickly and effectively and so they can reframe such negative thoughts into more appropriate context rather than fixating.

All the best,
Brian
http://www.briandavidphillips.com