What Our Wandering Thoughts Can Teach Us About Mental Health
Neuroscience News
Ten minutes of idle thought can tell us a lot about the potential risk of depression, researchers say. Those who tend to ruminate and were more past or negatively focused in their idle thoughts had an increased risk of depression.
A University of Arizona-led study published in Scientific Reports may offer some clues, and the findings reveal a surprising amount about our mental health.
78 participants were trained to voice their thoughts aloud for 10 minutes while sitting alone in a room without access to electronic devices. Researchers used audio equipment to record those thoughts, then transcribed the recordings and analyzed them for content. In total, more than 2,000 thoughts were analyzed.
