Meditation is often associated with focus and concentration, but what happens if you let your mind wander while you’re meditating instead of focusing it on one thing in particular? It turns out your mind is actually more active when it’s wandering, and this could be a good way of processing thoughts and emotions. Jian Xu, a physician at St. Olav’s Hospital in Trondheim, Norway and a researcher at the Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) set out to learn what the brain is actually doing while someone meditates.

“No one knows how the brain works when you meditate,” said Xu, “that’s why I’d like to study it.” Xu and his colleagues recruited 14 people who regularly meditate to participate in his study. They performed MRI scans on all 14 of the participants and noticed something very interesting when they reviewed the scans. They saw that the meditators had the highest levels of brain activity whenever they weren’t focusing on anything in particular, and they just let their minds wander.

I was surprised that the activity of the brain was greatest when the person’s thoughts wandered freely on their own, rather than when the brain worked to be more strongly focused,” said Xu. “When the subjects stopped doing a specific task and were not really doing anything special, there was an increase in activity in the area of the brain where we process thoughts and feelings. It is described as a kind of resting network. And it was this area that was most active during non-directive meditation.”

The next time you’re meditating, try letting your mind wander for a while. There’s nothing wrong with focused meditation, especially if you’re goal is to improve your concentration or take your mind off of other thoughts and bring yourself into the moment; but occasionally letting it wander could also be a good way to clean up some of the clutter in your mind.

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