Mind wandering and stress: When you don't like the present moment

Mind wandering, poor sleep, and negative affect: a threefold vicious cycle?

Mind wandering (MW) is intricately linked to sleep and affect, bearing clinical relevance for various psychiatric conditions, notably attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, and anxiety disorders. Most reviews concur that the relationship between disturbed sleep and negative affect is bidirectional. The directional relationships between MW propensity and disturbed sleep, as well as MW propensity and negative affect, are less clear. Therefore, this brief review aims to examine the limited studies that have directly explored temporally sequential relationships. These studies provide clear evidence for an impact of affect on MW and of MW on sleep, along with less unequivocal evidence for an influence of MW on affect and sleep on MW. Collectively, these individual reinforcement loops may constitute a threefold vicious cycle, which may contribute to the development and perpetuation of psychiatric disorders. Available data convincingly suggest an impact cycle in the direction "MW propensity → disturbed sleep → negative affect → MW propensity," while evidence for the inverse impact cycle is less pronounced.

College students' daily mind wandering is related to lower social well-being

Objective: This study sought to examine how daily mind wandering is related to loneliness, felt connection to others, and school belonging among college students. Participants: Three samples (n = 209, n = 173, and n = 266) from two US campuses were recruited. Methods: Data were collected via ecological momentary assessment over the course of two academic quarters in one sample and an academic semester in two samples. Results: Social well-being declined throughout the academic term in all samples. Lower day-to-day mind wandering predicted lower loneliness at the next time point and was concurrently related to a higher felt connection to others and higher school belonging. Thoughts about the past and future were associated with lower social well-being than present-focused thoughts. Conclusions: This study supports the proposition that promoting present-centered attention can benefit college students' social well-being and alleviate their feelings of loneliness and isolation that they often experience.

Cross-cultural adaptation of the Mind-Wandering Questionnaire (MWQ) for Brazilian Portuguese and evidence of its validity

OBJECTIVE

To adapt the Mind-Wandering Questionnaire (MWQ) for the Brazilian context and present evidence of validity based on its internal structure.

METHODS

A total of 2,682 Brazilian adults from different regions of the country took part in this study. Confirmatory factor analyses and multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA) were performed to assess the factor structure of the MWQ. McDonald's omega (ω) was generated to provide reliability indexes.

RESULTS

The analyses demonstrated an adequate factor structure for the MWQ adapted to the Brazilian context, corroborating the original article's single-factor model and other adaptation studies. Furthermore, the results demonstrated the instrument's reliability in a Brazilian population (ω = 0.88).

CONCLUSION

The MWQ is thus an adequate, reliable, and quickly administered instrument for those whose aim is to measure deliberate and spontaneous MW in Brazil.

Combined effects of cumulative stress and daily stressors on daily health

OBJECTIVE

It has been proposed that cumulative stress, one's experience of chronic stressors across multiple domains, worsens health by altering the extent to which daily stressors impact daily affect and physical symptoms. Recent work confirms that high cumulative stress exacerbates the association between daily stressor exposure and increased daily negative affect, though it remains untested the extent to which cumulative stress and daily stressor exposure interact to predict daily symptoms.

METHOD

We employed data from the second wave of the midlife in the U.S. Survey (N = 2,022; Mage = 56.2; 57.2% female) to examine whether levels of cumulative stress compound daily symptoms on days with (vs. without) stressful events. Experiences of life stressors across eight domains, occurrence of daily stressors, and occurrence, number, and severity of daily physical symptoms were analyzed using multilevel modeling.

RESULTS

Greater cumulative stress and experiencing (vs. not experiencing) a daily stressor independently increased the odds of occurrence, number, and severity of daily symptoms (ps ≤ .016). Moreover, after adjusting for covariates (e.g., sociodemographic characteristics, chronic health conditions, percent of days with reported stressors, and health behaviors), the associations between daily stressor exposure and odds of occurrence, number, and severity of daily symptoms were potentiated as levels of cumulative stress increased (ps ≤ .009).

CONCLUSIONS

The negative implications of daily stressor exposure for daily health may be most pronounced in those who report higher levels of cumulative stress across multiple life domains and across time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Maladaptive task-unrelated thoughts: Self-control failure or avoidant behavior? Preliminary evidence from an experience sampling study

Introduction

Task-unrelated thoughts (TUT) play an important role in everyday life functioning (e.g., anticipating the future, or providing a mental break). However, TUT might also be maladaptive, impairing cognitive performance emotion regulation, and increasing the risk of psychological disorders. In the present study, we aimed to test how self-reported control over TUT and task valence moderate the link between task difficulty and TUT intensity, testing the context regulation and avoidant alternative hypotheses of TUT occurrence.

Method

Forty-nine participants took part in an experience sampling study. They were asked to answer five times a day for 5 days a series of questions assessing the intensity, valence, control over TUT, and their momentary affect along with characteristics of the task they were currently performing. They also filled in trait questionnaires assessing their tendency to daydream, ruminate, and their beliefs on emotions' usefulness and controllability.

Results

The results showed that both task difficulty and one's lower control over thoughts along with their interaction significantly increased TUT intensity. Task negative valence significantly predicted TUT intensity and moderated the link between task difficulty and TUT intensity. In addition, the tendency to daydream and beliefs in the controllability of negative emotions affect the relations in this model.

Discussion

To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to provide quantitative evidence from an experience sampling study on the role of the valence of currently performed tasks and beliefs on emotions on TUT intensity. It might be an important indication for research and clinical practice that maladaptive TUT might not be only linked to self-control failure but also to emotion regulation strategies one is using.

Mind wandering in reading: An embodied approach

In the last 20 years, the study of mind wandering has attracted the attention of a growing number of researchers from fields like psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience. Mind wandering has been characterized in multiple ways: as task-unrelated, unintentional, stimulus-independent, or unguided thought processes. Those accounts have mostly focused on the identification of neurocognitive mechanisms that enable the emergence of mind-wandering episodes. Reading is one activity in which mind wandering frequently occurs, and it is widely accepted that mind wandering is detrimental for reading flow, comprehension and the capacity to make inferences based on the text. This mind wandering scepsis in reading is based on two unchallenged views: (i) that reading is a disembodied, mental activity of information processing, and (ii) that mind wandering is essentially characterized as a task-unrelated and involuntary thought process that disrupts all kinds of goal-oriented behavior. However, recent developments within cognitive science treat the mind as embodied and thus challenge both ontological and epistemological assumptions about what mind wandering is, where it is located, and how it is being studied empirically during reading. In this article we integrate embodied accounts of mind wandering and reading to show how reading benefits from nested mind wandering processes. Empirically, we investigate how a reader can move successfully in and out of different embodied processes and mesh different cognitive strategies over time, including some forms of mind wandering. While such changes in reading are frequently deemed dysfunctional, we suggest an alternative interpretation: Rather than seeking constant flow and fluency, we propose that reading is multi-actional and benefits from drawing on different cognitive strategies spanning mind wandering processes and goal-oriented behavior. In that sense, we suggest that mind wandering has a potential for enriching cognitive processes underlying reading, such as imagining and reflection. We exemplify these insights through analyses of data obtained in ethnographic and semi-experimental studies of reading practices. We conclude that to capture cognitive phenomena within an embodied framework, a richer methodology must be developed. Such a methodology must not only be capable of accounting for brains, bodies, and contexts in isolation, but must consider an overall brain-body-environment system.

The Four Factors of Mind Wandering Questionnaire: Content, Construct, and Clinical Validity

Despite great interest in Mind Wandering, a fully validated questionnaire has been lacking. The Four Factors of Mind Wandering (4FMW) Questionnaire, presented here, meets this demand. First, 80 items were judged for content validity by two panels of experts. Those items that survived this content validity assessment were then tested using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on two independent samples of young adults. The 16 resulting items were shown to cluster into four factors (i.e., Failure in social interaction, Failure in interaction with objects, Unawareness, and Inattention). The 4FMW questionnaire showed good reliability, robust structure, and acceptable goodness-of-fit indices, as well as good convergent validity with another Mind Wandering questionnaire. Importantly, the 4FMW questionnaire was able to discriminate between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms. The 4FMW Questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing mind wandering in the young adult population.

Dimensions of inattention: Cognitive, behavioral, and affective consequences

Inattention to one's on-going task leads to well-documented cognitive, behavioral, and physiological consequences. At the same time, the reliable association between mind-wandering and negative mood has suggested that there are affective consequences to task inattention as well. We examined this potential relationship between inattention and mood in the following study. Six hundred and fifty-five participants completed self-report questionnaires related to inattentive thinking (i.e., attentional lapses, daydreaming, mindfulness, rumination, reflection, worry, postevent processing, inattentiveness, and counterfactual thinking), a questionnaire about depressive symptoms, and a questionnaire about anxiety symptoms. First, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify potential underlying constructs of types of inattentive thinking. Using ordinary least squares extraction and Oblimin rotation, a three-factor model demonstrated suitable fit, broadly representing mind-wandering/inattentive consequences, repetitive negative thinking, and reflective/introspective thinking. Second, after eliminating measures that did not strongly load on any factor, structural equation modeling was conducted and found that the relationship between mind-wandering and depression was partially explained by repetitive negative thinking, whereas the relationship between mind-wandering and anxiety was fully explained by repetitive negative thinking. The present findings suggest that understanding how inattentive thoughts are interrelated not only influences mood and affect but also reveals important considerations of intentionality, executive functioning, and qualitative styles of these thoughts.

Occupational Stress-Induced Consequences to Employees in the Context of Teleworking from Home: A Preliminary Study

Challenges when many people moved their jobs from the office to home because of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have put stress on employees’ daily routine and professional lives. This article investigated the experience of individuals working not at the office and disclosed consequences of occupational stress such as mental and physical exhaustion, social deprivation, decreased work commitment, professional cynicism, and professional burnout. The preliminary study was based on a survey of 202 employees in Lithuania who were teleworking from home throughout the pandemic. According to the results, it can be assumed that teleworking had rather negative effects on employee wellbeing, as many teleworkers tended to suffer mental and physical exhaustion and social deprivation when working from home within pandemic. The psycho-emotional state of employees seems to be a key factor influencing the intellectual resources of an organization in a period of uncertainty.

Mindfulness-Based Attention Training in the Navy: A Feasibility Study

Mind wandering is common during daily activities and is even more prevalent under stressful conditions, which could lead to lapses in attention and poor performance. Newly recruited military personnel who undergo demanding training often experience high levels of stress. It is therefore imperative to find ways to foster mental health and avoid performance deterioration related to mind wandering in times of intense military training. This feasibility study investigated the effectiveness of an established low-dose mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), called Mindfulness-based Attention Training (MBAT), on mind wandering, attentional performance, and well-being, delivered by a facilitator who was taught how to deliver MBAT. A sample of newly recruited Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) Junior Officers (n = 17) undergoing demanding training participated in the 8-week long MBI with one weekly contact session. Measures of well-being and the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) were completed 4 weeks prior to the MBAT, at the start of the MBAT, at the end of the MBAT and 4 weeks after completion of the MBAT. Results suggest that MBAT might protect from performance decline during intense training and enhance levels of well-being at follow-up. These findings highlight the valuable role of mindfulness as a component in military training.

Effects of Chronic Burden Across Multiple Domains and Experiences of Daily Stressors on Negative Affect

BACKGROUND

Exposure to chronic psychological stress across multiple life domains (multi-domain chronic burden) is associated with poor health. This may be because multi-domain chronic burden influences daily-level emotional processes, though this hypothesis has not been thoroughly tested.

PURPOSE

The current study tested whether (a) multi-domain chronic burden is associated with greater exposure to daily stressors and (b) multi-domain chronic burden compounds negative affect on days with stressors compared to stressor-free days.

METHODS

The MIDUS Study (Wave II) and the National Study of Daily Experiences sub-study were conducted from 2004 to 2006 (N = 2,022). Participants reported on eight life domains of psychological stress used to create a multi-domain chronic burden summary score. For eight consecutive days, participants reported the daily occurrence of stressful events and daily negative affect.

RESULTS

Participants with greater multi-domain chronic burden were significantly more likely to report daily stressors. There was also a significant interaction between multi-domain chronic burden and daily stressors on negative affect: participants with higher multi-domain chronic burden had greater negative affect on stressor days than stressor-free days compared to those with lower multi-domain chronic burden.

CONCLUSION

Participants with higher multi-domain chronic burden were more likely to report daily stressors and there was a compounding effect of multi-domain chronic burden and daily stressors on negative affect. These results suggest that experiencing a greater amount of psychological stress across multiple life domains may make daily stressors more toxic for daily affect.

Asymmetrical Effects of Sleep and Emotions in Daily Life

Sleep is an important process that can influence and be influenced by daily events and emotions. We examined the bidirectional relationships between sleep, daily events, and emotions with a daily diary method completed by 181 mothers (M _age = 41.91, SD = 5.06). They answered morning and evening questionnaires for 1 week at three different points in time separated by nine months each, 21 days in total. Measures of sleep quality and emotional experiences each morning were assessed, and they reported on their best and worst experience of the day, peak emotional responses to these events, and affect in the evening. Sleep behavior, including total sleep time and sleep efficiency, was objectively quantified using wrist actigraphy. Multilevel modeling analyses showed that longer sleep duration and better subjective quality predicted greater positive emotions and lower negative emotions upon waking, and lower levels of peak perceived stressfulness, but not peak positivity ratings. Daily experiences did not predict sleep duration. Conversely, negative affect in the evening and greater peak perceived stressfulness during the day predicted worse sleep quality that night, whereas positive affect and positive events were not related to sleep. Although correlational, these findings suggest that good sleep can improve waking affect and help mitigate the impact of stressful experiences but does not amplify responses to the positive events of the day. In turn, daily perceived stress reactivity impairs sleep quality. These novel findings show stronger bidirectional relationships between sleep with daily stress, than sleep with daily positivity.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00112-x.

When Work Conflicts With Personal Projects: The Association of Work-Life Conflict With Worker Wellbeing and the Mediating Role of Mindfulness

The negative emotional and health effects of work-life conflict (WLC) have been demonstrated in numerous studies regarding organizational psychology and occupational health. However, little is known about WLC's relationship with positive wellbeing outcomes, including emotional, psychological, and social aspects of workers' thriving. Furthermore, the mediating processes underlying the effects of WLC remain mostly unknown. The current study investigated the associations of perceived time- and strain-based WLC with positive mental health and thriving at work, as well as the mediating role of mindfulness in these associations. It is argued that WLC causes reduced mindfulness capacities among workers, which is in turn associated with lower positive wellbeing given the importance of mindfulness in emotion regulation. A sample of 330 workers based in Québec, Canada, completed an online survey including a measure of strain- and time-based interference with personal projects (i.e., the goals and activities that define the daily life of an individual) and validated scales of wellbeing outcomes and mindfulness. Results of structural equation modeling revealed negative associations between time- and strain-based WLC with positive mental health and thriving at work. Work-life conflict was related to lower mindfulness, which played a mediating role in the associations between time-based WLC with positive mental health and thriving at work, as well as strain-based WLC with positive mental health. The mediation was complete for the time-based WLC and positive mental health association, but partial for the other mediated pathways, highlighting the need for more research to identify additional mediators. These results highlight that beyond resulting in negative emotional/health outcomes often studied in previous research, WLC may be associated with workers' reduced potential to live a fulfilling life, in general and in the workplace. Recommendations (e.g., mindfulness intervention to promote emotional regulation, personal project intervention) for workplace policymakers and practitioners are identified.

Psychological Resources and Biomarkers of Health in the Context of Chronic Parenting Stress

Background

Epidemiological studies link psychological resources to better physical health. One reason may be that psychological resources are protective in stressful contexts. This study tested whether indeed psychological resources are protective against biological degradation for healthy mid-life women under the chronic stress of caring for a child with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis (“caregivers”).

Methods

We tested whether five types of psychosocial resources (i.e., eudaimonic well-being, autonomy, purpose in life, self-acceptance, and mastery) were associated with biological indices of aging in a sample of mid-life women stratified by chronic stress; half were caregivers (n = 92) and half were mothers of neurotypical children (n = 91; controls). Selected stress and age related biological outcomes were insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), systemic inflammation (IL-6, CRP), and cellular aging (leukocyte telomere length). We tested whether each resource was associated with these biomarkers, and whether caregiving status and high parenting stress moderated that relationship.

Results

All the psychological resources except mastery were significantly negatively associated with insulin resistance, while none were related to systemic inflammation or telomere length. The relationships between eudaimonic well-being and HOMA-IR, and self-acceptance and HOMA-IR, were moderated by parental stress; lower resources were associated with higher insulin resistance, but only for women reporting high parental stress. The well-known predictors of age and BMI accounted for 46% of variance in insulin resistance, and psychological resources accounted for an additional 13% of variance. 

Conclusion

These findings suggest that higher eudaimonic well-being and greater self-acceptance may be protective for the metabolic health of mid-life women, and particularly in the context of high parenting stress. This has important implications given the rising rates of both parental stress and metabolic disease, and because psychological interventions can increase eudaimonic well-being and self-acceptance.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12529-021-10007-z.

Pre-retirement Employees Experience Lasting Improvements in Resilience and Well-Being After Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

The socio-economic benefits of interventions to prevent stress and related mental health problems are enormous. In the labor market, it is becoming desirable to keep employees for as long as possible. Since aging implies additional stressors such as increased risk of illness, and added pressure by professional tasks such as transferring knowledge, or learning new technologies, it is of particular relevance to offer stress-reduction to pre-retirement employees. Here, we report the effects of an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) intervention on mental well-being in 60-65-year-old work-active Danish employees, compared to a waiting-list control group. We observed improvements in resilience (Brief Resilience Scale) and mental well-being (WHO-5) not only at the end of the intervention, but also at the 12-month follow-up measurement that was preceded by monthly booster sessions. Interestingly, whereas well-being usually refers to experiences in the past weeks or months, we observed increasing Comfort in the MBSR-intervention group during a 5-minute eyes-closed rest session suggesting that this therapeutic effect of MBSR is measurable in how we feel even during short periods of time. We argue that MBSR is a cost-effective intervention suited for pre-retirement employees to cultivate resilience to prevent stress, feel more comfortable with themselves, maintain a healthy work-life in the last years before retirement, and, potentially, stay in their work-life a few more years than originally planned.

A narrative review of emotion regulation process in stress and recovery phases

The difficulty in studying the relationship between stress and emotional regulation is due to the need to contemplate a dynamic perspective that analyzes the moderating role of stress. In fact, stress involves different phases or stages, and the neurocognitive processes involved in emotion regulation differ significantly between these phases. The period of anticipation of stressful events can be fundamental to understand the process of stress regulation; however, surprisingly few works have analyzed the differential activation of brain networks involved in cognitive regulation during the phases of stress and recovery. Taking this into consideration, within this study we propose to analyze in an integrated way the psychological and neurobiological processes during the phase of stress and recovery, with the aim of improving our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie successful and unsuccessful stress regulation. We consider that from the present review we contribute to achieve a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying successful and unsuccessful stress regulation would contribute to the improvement of prevention and treatment interventions for mental disorders.

The long shadow of childhood trauma for depression in midlife: examining daily psychological stress processes as a persistent risk pathway

BACKGROUND

Childhood trauma (CT) increases the risk of adult depression. Buffering effects require an understanding of the underlying persistent risk pathways. This study examined whether daily psychological stress processes - how an individual interprets and affectively responds to minor everyday events - mediate the effect of CT on adult depressive symptoms.

METHODS

Middle-aged women (N = 183) reported CT at baseline and completed daily diaries of threat appraisals and negative evening affect for 7 days at baseline, 9, and 18 months. Depressive symptoms were measured across the 1.5-year period. Mediation was examined using multilevel structural equation modeling.

RESULTS

Reported CT predicted greater depressive symptoms over the 1.5-year time period (estimate = 0.27, s.e. = 0.07, 95% CI 0.15-0.38, p < 0.001). Daily threat appraisals and negative affect mediated the effect of reported CT on depressive symptoms (estimate = 0.34, s.e. = 0.08, 95% CI 0.22-0.46, p < 0.001). Daily threat appraisals explained more than half of this effect (estimate = 0.19, s.e. = 0.07, 95% CI 0.08-0.30, p = 0.004). Post hoc analyses in individuals who reported at least moderate severity of CT showed that lower threat appraisals buffered depressive symptoms. A similar pattern was found in individuals who reported no/low severity of CT.

CONCLUSIONS

A reported history of CT acts as a latent vulnerability, exaggerating threat appraisals of everyday events, which trigger greater negative evening affect - processes that have important mental health consequences and may provide malleable intervention targets.

Mind-wandering content differentially translates from lab to daily life and relates to subjective stress experience

Experience and thoughts that are unrelated to the external surroundings are pervasive features of human cognition. Research under the rubric of mind-wandering suggests that such internal experience is context-dependent, and that the content of ongoing thought differentially influences a range of associated outcomes. However, evidence on how the extent of mind-wandering and its content translate from the laboratory to daily life settings is scarce. Furthermore, the relationship between such patterns of thought with markers of stress in daily life remains underexplored. In the current study, we examined multiple aspects of mind-wandering of ninety-three healthy participants (47 women, 25.4 ± 3.9 years) in both the laboratory and daily life and explored two questions: (a) how are mind-wandering extent and content correlated across both settings, and (b) what are their relationships with subjective stress and salivary cortisol levels in daily life? Our results suggest that the extent of off-task thinking is not correlated across contexts, while features of content—i.e., social, future-directed and negative thought content—robustly translate. We also found that daily life subjective stress was linked to more on-task, negative, and future-directed thinking, suggesting stress was linked with the need to act on personally relevant goals. Based on these results we speculate that differences in the links between stress and ongoing thought in daily life may be one reason why patterns of thinking vary from lab to everyday life. More generally, these findings underline the need to consider both context and content in investigating mind-wandering and associated features of subjective experience, and call for caution in generalizing laboratory findings to participants’ daily lives.