There is evidence that the default mode network of the brain works unconsciously so that in an idle state, the brain finds connections among concepts without awareness. Then for reasons we do not yet understand, sometimes these thoughts reach awareness. The important thing is that during rest, the default mode network can open connections between brain regions that are normally too busy trying to keep up with your activity-filled life to talk to each other. This is when true creativity and insight can happen.
Recent research is revealing that some forms of self knowledge may only appear to us in idle states. The default mode network activates not only when we are at rest, but also when we turn our attention to ourselves and “spect intro.” Our mind begins to wander and the contents of our unconsciousness can percolate up into awareness. The default mode network allows us to process information that is related to social relationships, our place in the wider world, fantasies we have about the future, and of course: emotions.
Could it be that these uncomfortable things you are suppressing by scheduling your day to oblivion are knocking on the door to your consciousness for a reason? The common sense notion about “workaholics” is that they find idleness and inactivity to be unbearable because they are escaping emotional pain through constant work.
We can get reports from teachers or coaches on our child’s successes–all without actually ever seeing the child do the activity we signed them up for. After all, we have more important things to do, like work! It should come as no surprise that as “play dates” overtake simply hanging around with friends and actually playing outside, childhood anxiety and depression rates are soaring, in tandem with childhood obesity.
Children who do not spend several hours every day outside running around, hanging out with friends, not doing anything in particular, and instead spend every moment of every day doing parent- induced tasks and lessons, seeing friends on a schedule, eating massively. Processed food, and playing video games in order to virtually explore their worlds, become obese and depressed.
For those achievement-obsessed parents and students for whom unnecessary pharmacological manipulation with amphetamine-derived ADHD medication is not financially or morally problematic, there are apparently plenty of academic-doping doctors who will prescribe ADHD medicine to undiagnosed students so they can attain artificial laser-like focus and crush their competition on the SATs.
Depression and anxiety are highly correlated with people’s sense of control over their own lives.
Ironically for a culture obsessed with optimizing child development, increasing evidence about the brain shows that not having externally directed goals is crucial for the brains development.
What’s more, children may develop an uncomfortable relationship with their idle selves, like many adults. When this happens, becoming idle will initially induce a feeling very similar to what a smoker craving a cigarette experiences; restless desperation. The child will seek out external stimulation in digital devices, approval from teachers, or from other adults.
The kind of crazed and constant activity suppresses brain activity in the most important neural networks. We know too that depression and anxiety are associated with abnormalities in the default mode network.
Overachievement Oriented Parenting is already making our children less creative, less social, and potentially less moral. Idleness, especially during childhood, could turn out to be critical to our development into moral and social beings.
Many scientists theorize that our economy is a self organizing system. However, we will see that when these systems are pushed too far away from a state of what’s called “criticality,” they can collapse or completely change how they respond to the environment.
Whether the system we’re talking about is an individual human being, an entire society, or the climate, staying within certain limits is essential for the system’s stability. For humans, this might be why being idle is so important: it allows your system to return to what are called “stable dynamics.”
Self-organization is a feature of complexity. It sometimes goes by another name: emergence. This means that complex behavior of a system displays macroscopic characteristics that none of the system’s constituent parts display. Extremely complex behavior at the system level can emerge from the interaction of simpler parts of the system.
What neuroscience has revealed is that there is no such control center in the brain. There are hubs in our brain networks whose activity is more influential than others; however, there is no one single hub that dictates action.
Source : Autopilot: The Art & Science of Doing Nothing by Andrew Smart
Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18053732-autopilot
Read Previous Article : https://thinkingbeyondscience.in/2025/03/19/understanding-the-brains-default-mode-network/
Read the Next Article in the Series :
Thinking Beyond Science 
Leave a comment