Why Daydreaming is good for you?

Daydreams can give you a needed escape from boring situations, monotonous jobs, and long commutes. The mind can help you overcome the constraints of the present and travel wherever you want; even if it is made-up realms...think George Lucas and Star Wars. Daydreams can be empowering, not negative as parents, teachers, and managers have often led us to believe. They are not a waste of time, as #thought for so many years.

Daydreaming can get us closer to realizing the dreams we most want for ourselves, according to an article by Scott Barry Kaufman in Psychology Today.

They can help us reach our deepest desires and strivings. Just think about where we would be today if inventors never daydreamed.

It's also good for us psychologically to let go of the present moment and take a break from reality. This is what happens when gamers play video games or athletes watch or play sports. If we ignore our daydreams we could be robbing ourselves of optimal learning, creativity, and well-being.

Guilt-producing daydreams that give us unpleasant emotions, such as #anxiety, guilt, fear of failure, and the like, can only be bad for us. Positive daydreams give us emotional well-being and can keep us from becoming depressed or from having negative emotions.

The article in Psychology Today goes on to say that daydreaming helps us to develop memories, imagine ideas and plans and get a greater sense of identity and personal meaning. Internal reflection is a trait that is necessary to develop healthy social and #emotional functioning.

Healthy #daydreaming and internal reflection is also a sign of intelligence. It is necessary for us to draw on our own thoughts and ideas to develop goals that fit into the lives we see for ourselves.

Dr. Kaufman states that these attentions serve our personal aspirations. It helps keep us on task as we pursue them over the long hall. Studies and testing have proved that those people whose daydreams are most positive and most specific also score high in mindfulness, a purposeful, non-judgemental mode of awareness. Mindfulness trains us in attention functions that are crucial to allow us to maintain focus on the external environment and ignore inner chatter as situations demand.

So the next time you find yourself for your child daydreaming, remember, it's not a waste of time.