The Importance of Zoning Out
By: Marianna Saver
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Inspiration, Psychology, Culture

The Importance of Zoning Out

What if thoughtfulness is the new mindfulness?

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

When I ask friends or family to repeat what they just said to me, the reply is almost always: “Did you zone out again?” I usually like to answer that being zoned out is my natural state; I just zone back in once in a while.

Although I mean it as a joke, there is some truth in my line — one that hints at the possibility that inviting diverse thoughts in our mind instead of rejecting them in the name of presence can sometimes be good for us.

The first time I caught myself spacing out, I was in fourth grade. It was during an award ceremony of a local writing contest I won. That meant I had to stand on a stage in front of about 60 schoolmates while a lady read my story and a guy behind me would make a live drawing out of what she was reading.

Some children would have felt proud to be on that stage — but I was the farthest thing from those children. If I could have given an arm and not be there, I would have. So I started mind-wandering about being someplace else. Physically I was standing on that stage but mentally I was occupied with other tasks.

So where was I, really?

Mind-Wandering: Laziness or a Creative Habit?

In a culture obsessed with efficiency, some may interpret my tendency to zone out as infantile thinking, a lazy habit, or a sign of procrastination. But is it possible that spacing out — when done right — is a form of productive creativity?

In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty — adapted from a short story by James Thurber — Ben Stiller plays a clumsy 40-something who spends day after monotonous day developing photos for Life magazine. To escape the tedium he often zones out in a world of exciting daydreams in which he is the undeniable hero. Only when he faces unemployment, he decides to stand up for himself and to become an agent of his life, instead of a witness.

The movie quietly celebrates the overwhelming beauty of the present moment, the pronounced joy and healing nature of being fully alert. But what if we have become too alert? Is there such a thing as too much focus?

According to psychologist Rebecca L. McMillan who co-authored a paper titled “Ode To Positive Constructive Daydreaming,” mind-wandering can aid in the process of “creative incubation.” Many of us know from experience that our best ideas come seemingly out of the blue when our minds are elsewhere. Being too alert or focused on a task may actually kill the opportunity of a creative revelation.

The practice of zoning out may seem mindless but there’s evidence that it could involve a highly engaged brain state. Spacing out once in a while can lead to sudden connections and insights because it’s related to our ability to recall information in the face of distractions.

Nevertheless, we have elected focus, presence, and attention to the mundane as the gatekeepers of happiness and success. Thanks to smartphones, laptops, and apps to keep us updated on the go, there’s no second left to wonder, no moment left unexamined, no opportunity left for spacing out the zone. Yet, this system seems to fail us.

The Forgotten Art of Thoughtfulness

Anxiety is now more common than ever, especially among young adults. In the United States alone, it affects over 30% of the population. In 2018, approximately 16.2 million adults suffered from at least one depression episode and around 15% of men and 22% of women reported some mental illness in the past year.

As a millennial, I had my fair share of anxiety disorders too. I understand why young people in particular may feel anxious. I know that most millennials are afraid of the future — their own, and that of the world. Mainly, we are afraid not to live up to our belief of what life should and shouldn’t be. I know that some — myself included — are afraid of their own thoughts. So often, they seem too many and too distracting.

We often treat our thoughts as something to dismiss, to hide from others and ourselves, like involuntary, bodily reflexes one has to almost feel sorry for, when in fact they are the very essence of life.

We tell ourselves that too much thinking impairs action. Too much thinking cannot be good for us, so we sign up for yoga classes, cooking lessons, online courses. We take on more work than we can handle just to keep ourselves busy. Anything but thinking. Ideally, we start meditating, which is the absence of thoughts — or at least of any attachment to thoughts. So we download a meditation app and spend at least 15 minutes scrolling through the plethora of available talks and guided meditations and nature sounds, only to find ourselves mindful of the fact that we are, in fact, more anxious than before.

For some reason, we forgot about the art of children, the art of Walter Mitty: the art of zoning out. The value of staring into space and getting lost in thoughts, until they sprout into ideas.

We know a good deal about mindfulness, which is the state of being aware of sensation, but we don’t know much about thoughtfulness, which is the state of being full of thoughts. We often treat our thoughts as something to dismiss, to hide from others and ourselves, like involuntary, bodily reflexes one has to almost feel sorry for, when in fact they are the very essence of life.

Thinking is a process. Just like life, it doesn’t happen smoothly. But that doesn’t mean we should reject it. Being absorbed in thoughts is how I started writing this piece. And staying zoned out is how I arrived at the end of it.

Zoning Out as a Sense-Making Mechanism

These moments where I am zoned out, jumping from one train of thoughts to another are, ironically, the moments when I am the most zoned-in: when I am the most connected and alive.

That’s when the world feels more manageable. Not because it becomes safer or more distant — but because there’s more nothingness, more in-betweens, more opportunities, more naturally occurring blank spaces to glue it together.

Getting lost in thought is how I get ideas for my writing. It’s how I get inspiration for my next projects. And it’s how I make sense of life. It may not sound as dreamy as a 20-minute guided meditation but, often, it’s a lot more rewarding than that.