The Case for Spontaneity
Cognitive Neuroscientist Jessica Andrews-Hanna Wants Us to Take a [Real] Break
Cognitive neuroscientist Jessica Andrews-Hanna is passionate about exploring the hidden aspects of the world around and within us.
As an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Arizona and director of the Neuroscience of Emotion and Thought (NET) Lab, she combines behavioral experiments with functional brain imaging (fMRI) and network analysis to bring human thought, emotion, memory and other internally guided processes into view.
Her research explores questions relevant to various mental health disorders and individuals of all ages. The goal of this work is to develop interventions that help people reap the benefits of internally guided cognition, which includes reflecting on the past, considering the future and problem-solving.
Andrews-Hanna was recently featured in a Time magazine article about how to be more spontaneous and why making time for spontaneity may be beneficial. In some of her studies, Andrews-Hanna has found that a high percentage of college students asked to sit alone with their thoughts find the experience unpleasant.
In a world where turning to the distraction of a smartphone is so commonplace, Andrews-Hanna suggests we brave our boredom for the fruits of taking true breaks and letting our minds wander. She sat down with us to discuss spontaneity as well as some of her research that measures everyday thinking in different contexts.
Q: Could you describe the NET lab for non-scientists?
A: In the NET lab, we study the nature of human thought and emotions — the core processes that make us unique as individuals but are surprisingly hard to measure because they lie within our heads. We actually don’t know that much about the nature of everyday thought, so a big focus of our research is developing techniques to measure thoughts and emotions as they occur in people’s everyday lives. We also use brain imaging to map functional brain networks that support our thoughts and emotions, hence the acronym of our lab.
Q: What exactly is spontaneity, and could you also describe some of the most common states and thought patterns that are not spontaneous, for context?
A: The operational definition of spontaneity that we’ve been using in our lab is: experiencing thoughts and behaviors that seemingly come out of nowhere and are very flexible in their trajectory. An example would be when someone is mind-wandering, and they might happen on a thought, and that thought then may lead into another seemingly unrelated thought, that will then lead into another thought. We would call this style of thinking spontaneous, or unconstrained. These kinds of thoughts are different than the very intrusive thoughts that are quite common for some people. Intrusive thoughts are more habitual, and they’re inflexible, so they’re not likely to flow freely. When they appear in your mind, they’re going to stick there, and they’re going to be very hard to let go. For example, when we ruminate about the past, have anxious thoughts about the future or experience cravings, our thoughts are out of our control, but they’re not spontaneous in the sense of being unconstrained.
Q: Why is spontaneity important? What are the benefits of being spontaneous?
A: We really don’t know the definitive answer to those questions because it really has not been studied that much. That’s part of why our lab is dedicated to these topics. There are elements from other domains in psychology that could provide some insight. For example, it turns out that spontaneity seems to be highly important for creative thought. During the “generation” phase of creativity, it’s very important for your thoughts to flow with ease and very flexibly. So we think that spontaneous thought is highly important for creativity.
It may also be highly important for memory consolidation. We know that one of the time periods in which people often have spontaneous thoughts is during short breaks in between tasks, which are very important times for our brain to subconsciously learn the material that we were previously exposed to. If we don’t have those breaks, or if those breaks are instead consumed by engaging in very constrained thought or distraction, this may have devastating effects on our memory and learning.
Q: Could you discuss the links you’ve found between freely moving, spontaneous thoughts and life satisfaction, or how cultivating spontaneous thought impacts aging?
A: There’s been a little bit of other work linking spontaneous thoughts to happiness. Thoughts that that are characterized as more free-flowing tend to be associated with being in a positive, happy state and having overall better well-being. There’s one important theory about this called “broaden and build theory.” It’s this idea that when you’re in a positive mood, you can think very broadly, and your thoughts can flow with ease, which aids things like being creative. But when you’re in a bad mood, your thoughts become more narrow, and that may have some detrimental consequences for the other things that I just mentioned while further promoting negative mood states. If you’re in a negative mood and then you’re ruminating on something, then that’s going to cause you to be in a more negative mood and may lead to a downward spiral of negative thinking.
I’m hesitant to say too much about the link to aging and spontaneous thoughts. We do know, however, that if you ask older adults about the kinds of things they tend to think about in everyday life, the content of their thoughts looks very similar to a younger adult who scores very highly on a test of trait mindfulness, [the ability to focus nonjudgmentally on the present moment]. And so older adults are actually saying that their thoughts are more positive and more about other people. Their thoughts tend to be more present-oriented, and they have more control over their thoughts. As to how that then really maps onto the spontaneous and the dynamics of the thought, we don’t know yet. This is one thing that we’re trying to measure in our lab. So the link between aging and well-being is a fascinating one. There does appear to be a paradox in the literature, where, despite the heightened risk for loneliness and health problems as well as the challenges aging tends to bring, there also often comes a sense of satisfaction with life and a focus on goals that bring meaning and happiness.
Q: Are there ways we can make our predictable daily tasks more spontaneous? Can cleaning a room or doing the same workout every day be made more spontaneous?
A: I do think that it may be beneficial for everyone to bring a sense of spontaneity to their actions. There are all these moments throughout the day that I feel like our brains were built to expect spontaneity. Many of them are natural breaks in more structured activities our brains engage in. Moments like waiting for transportation to pick us up or taking a shower. But, especially because of the importance of technology now in our lives, I have a lot of concerns that we’re not actually taking advantage of our breaks in the way that we should in order to promote a healthy brain and mind. And so the degree to which we can make tasks fun and silly — all of those things are great. Even just adopting this perspective of, “let me just give myself time to relax and not have to be on the go all the time.” Those breaks are sacred. We don’t want to interfere with them by instead occupying our minds with something else that then defeats the purpose of taking breaks. For instance, I think if we’re doing mindless chores at home, rather than turning on a show to watch while we’re doing them, maybe this would be a nice time to just let our minds wander.
‘Playing with your kids could be a very interesting exercise, because you can’t have control when playing with kids, right? Kids are going to just go with the flow, and so that may be a nice way to add spontaneity in your life. ... So you could set some time aside each day to just be there with your kids or your pets or even with friends and family in social contexts.
Q: It sounds like part of what you’re saying is that in order to make space for the experience of spontaneity, we may sometimes confront boredom.
A: Yes, and this is hard, especially if our first instinct is to just turn to our phone to entertain us. And I think this is a particular problem in kids. Digital devices are basically designed to encourage kids not to use their imagination. And what we’re finding in a lot of our studies is that when we ask college students to just sit alone with their thoughts for 10 minutes, this appears to be an unpleasant experience for many of them. Many younger folks tend to not like just being alone with their thoughts. However, in some of our research, we’re actually showing that for people who score higher on measures of creativity, that’s not the case. They actually savor and protect this time, and they’ll take 10 minutes to think in a very flexible and spontaneous way that may relate to why they tend to be highly creative.
Q: What are some suggestions for spontaneity for people who strongly benefit from routine or predictability?
A: If they happen to have kids, playing with your kids could be a very interesting exercise, because you can’t have control when playing with kids, right? Kids are going to just go with the flow, and so that may be a nice way to add spontaneity in your life. It’s true for pets, too. So you could set some time aside each day to just be there with your kids or your pets or even with friends and family in social contexts. And then, also, [as I] was mentioning before, add little breaks. If you want to even schedule breaks, that’s great, but make sure that that time to take a break is truly a break.
If you can walk or move, that’s even better. There appears to be a connection between the physical act of moving and the cognitive act of moving in your mind. There are some theories about this. It may relate to the neurotransmitter dopamine. Really it hasn’t been measured that much, but a lot of times, people feel like they need to move to think. I would also say, pick up a new hobby. And if you have a writing task, try to take more advantage of that brainstorming period where you just let the thoughts flow without editing them. Just get it all on paper, and then you can have your editing time later. Journaling is also a really good approach to just getting your thoughts out on paper. Even your worries and anxieties. Just let them out there and let them move.
Q: What else are you researching that you are excited about?
A: We’re doing a lot of research into people’s everyday lives. One thing that is exciting is we’ve developed this free, cross-platform app called Mind Window, and as of now we’ve got about 5,000 people from all over the world who use it pretty consistently. So we’re able to explore the kinds of things that people think about in day-to-day life, how those thoughts change or vary in different periods of the lifespan, and how they might relate to things like mental health, personality and demographic characteristics.
Some of this research is relevant to what’s sometimes called the preclinical stages of dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease. So what we’re finding is that [as] we measure a lot of cognitive processes in the real world, we’re not really replicating what has been found in the lab. And for a long time we took that to mean, “Oh, well, there’s something wrong with how we’re assessing.” But the way we are making assessments may actually be more accurate. That research has led to this whole branch of work that’s essentially challenging the entire field of aging and memory research, which we are excited about.
We have another line of work on thoughts and emotions, but in relationship contexts. We actually recruit romantic couples to the lab, and we measure lots of things — both what they’re thinking and feeling, and the nature of couples’ everyday conversations. We also scan both partners [with] MRI and see how their brains are connected, so to speak.
To learn more about her work in the NET Lab or to enroll in a study by Andrews-Hanna, search “Tucson NET lab.”