Mind Wandering, Sleep Quality, Affect and Chronotype: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Poor sleep quality impairs cognition, including executive functions and concentration, but there has been little direct research on the relationships between sleep quality and mind wandering or daydreaming. Evening chronotype is associated with poor sleep quality, more mind wandering and more daydreaming; negative affect is also a mutual correlate. This exploratory study investigated how mind wandering and daydreaming are related to different aspects of sleep quality, and whether sleep quality influences the relationships between mind wandering/daydreaming and negative affect, and mind wandering/daydreaming and chronotype. Three surveys (Ns = 213; 190; 270) were completed with Chinese adults aged 18–50, including measures of sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, mind wandering, daydreaming, chronotype and affect (positive and negative). Higher frequencies of mind wandering and daydreaming were associated with poorer sleep quality, in particular with poor subjective sleep quality and increased sleep latency, night-time disturbance, daytime dysfunction and daytime sleepiness. Poor sleep quality was found to partially mediate the relationships between daydreaming and negative affect, and mind wandering and negative affect. Additionally, low positive affect and poor sleep quality, in conjunction, fully mediated the relationships between chronotype and mind wandering, and chronotype and daydreaming. The relationships between mind wandering/daydreaming and positive affect were also moderated by chronotype, being weaker in those with a morning preference. Finally, while daytime sleepiness was positively correlated with daydream frequency, it was negatively correlated with a measure of problem-solving daydreams, indicating that more refined distinctions between different forms of daydreaming or mind wandering are warranted. Overall, the evidence is suggestive of a bi-directional relationship between poor sleep quality and mind wandering/daydreaming, which may be important in attempts to deal with sleep problems and improve sleep quality. These findings and further research on this topic may also have implications for definitions and theories of mind wandering and daydreaming.

Mind‐wandering in children with and without ADHD

“…As such, future studies should address this overlap and differentiation between MW, ADHD and maladaptive daydreaming. In addition, it is important to include sleep quality in future studies, as sleepiness or fatigue may contribute to MW (Carciofo, Du, Song, & Zhang, ).…”

Rest but busy: Aberrant resting‐state functional connectivity of triple network model in insomnia

“…Behavioral performance and scale scores analysis revealed that patients with ID who had poorer subjective sleep quality measured by PSQI showed worse subjective thought control ability and more negative affect. Previous studies have demonstrated that the higher frequencies of mind wandering, daydream, and negative thought intrusion were associated with poorer sleep quality, in particular with poorer subjective sleep quality (Baker, Baldwin, & Garner, 2015;Carciofo, Du, Song, & Zhang, 2014). Worrisome thought is a center feature of several models of insomnia and involves persistent intrusive thoughts, which may impair the cognitive control in insomnia patients (Borkovec, Robinson, Pruzinsky, & DePree, 1983;Harvey, 2002;Lundh & Broman, 2000).…”

What does (and should) "mind wandering" mean?

“…Indeed, as noted earlier, across numerous studies, unguided thought has frequently been implied in researchers' conceptualizations of mind wandering (e.g., Blanchard et al, 2014;Carciofo et al, 2014;Christoff et al, 2016;Qu et al, 2015;Irving, 2016;Rummel & Boywitt, 2014; for more examples, see Seli, Risko, & Smilek, 2016a, Supplemental Materials), and such a conceptualization appears to be a sensible one.…”

“…Indeed, intentionally occurring thoughts might seem to best reflect states wherein people actively guide their attention toward a task, which appear to be antithetical to our general conceptualization of mind wandering. It is presumably the case that, for this reason, some researchers have explicitly defined mind wandering in terms of unintentional thought (e.g., Blanchard et al, 2014;Carciofo et al, 2014;Qu et al, 2015;Rummel & Boywitt, 2014; for more examples, see Seli, Risko, & Smilek, 2016a, Supplemental Materials). One problem, however, with such a strict definition of mind wandering is that it excludes as cases of mind wandering situations in which people are at ease, sitting dreamily, allowing their thoughts to wander, or cases in which an individual deliberately neglects the task at hand in the service of entertaining TUT.…”