We often see daydreaming as a bad thing – as something that robs us of productive time with useless musings. There’s a lot to be said, however, for the benefits of daydreaming.

Try to do it responsibly, however: try to learn from and use your daydreams productively and don’t dwell on them too long while you’re on the clock.

Creative Problem Solving

One of the benefits of daydreaming is that it is a safe way for our minds to run through potential scenarios and even test how it might solve problems.

Obviously, this isn’t true if you imagine yourself flying through the clouds or making pizzas appear out of thin air. A lot of the times, however, when our minds wander, they are wandering towards what might happen in our lives.In order to take advantage of this benefit of daydreaming, you need to be aware of when your daydreams are realistic scenarios. This doesn’t only mean avoiding giving yourself super powers, it also means avoiding letting things get too dark.If your daydreams are too rosy, they won’t help you find a solution and if they are unrealistically scary, they may just make things worse.

Improved Mood

Daydreaming about fun things doesn’t help you solve problems but that doesn’t mean that it is useless. Imagining things that make you happy is called “positive mental imaging.”

It can help you to calm yourself down when you’re feeling stressed but can also do more powerful things like help your body manage pain.This is the kind of daydreaming that you can’t chalk up to productive planning like you may be able to do with the above-mentioned strategy. It is also the kind of daydreaming that you may get carried away with.

Positive mental imaging can be a powerful tool, but you should still be sure that you don’t let it take up too much of your time, especially when you’re on the clock.

Personal Insight

Your daydreams can help you but so can intercepting them. Realizing you’re daydreaming and getting back to work can be important but so can taking an additional moment to think about what your daydreams were about.Daydreams aren’t usually from such a deep area of the subconscious as sleeping dreams are but some of that deep element is still there. As a result, thinking about what you’ve been daydreaming can help you to understand feelings or thoughts that you might not understand as completely if you just brush those daydreams aside.That doesn’t mean that you need to dig into the symbolism of your day dreams like some people do with sleeping dreams. Just ask yourself why your daydreams might have developed the way that you did. Was your daydream light and fun because you just heard some good news? If so, take that positive energy forward into constructive work. Was your daydream dark and sad or even violent because you recently heard some bad news? If so, you might want to try to take a little walk – or even practice a little positive mental imaging to address those feelings.

Improved Memory

Some of the benefits of daydreaming depend on when you do it. If there’s something complicated going on that you need to pay attention to, daydreaming can obviously pose a distraction.

However, if you’re doing a simple task letting your mind wander can actually be more beneficial than trying to focus on something that your mind has essentially automated.Studies have shown that people who let their minds wander while doing things that they intimately understand actually had better working memory. Working memory is a specific kind of short-term memory that helps us to make decisions.If you try to focus on something that doesn’t require your attention you might miss larger system-level things. These are the things that you are more likely to notice passively if you aren’t arbitrarily focusing your attention on details.

Daydreaming has a bad rap, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Allowing your mind to drift from time to time can help you to find creative solutions, relieve stress, understand your emotions better, and even improve your memory. The important thing is to not let yourselves be distracted by these fantasies when something demands your attention and to not spend so much time daydreaming that you ignore real-world obligations.