Why this doctor is telling people it’s time to get ‘unfocused’ and start daydreaming and napping

Focus! Concentrate! Pay attention! And whatever you do, don’t daydream. Sound familiar? From the day we start school we’re told, time and time again, that in order to succeed, we need to focus. But according to psychiatrist and brain researcher Dr Srini Pillay, author of Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind, ‘focus’ is not the be all and end all of success. In fact, Dr Pillay believes it’s essential to build regular, deliberate ‘unfocus’ time into your day, saying that it promotes brain calmness, increases productivity, improves long-term memory and sparks creativity. And it all comes down to the way the brain works. When we’re focused, we use a part of the brain called the fronto-parietal cortex. Dr Pillay describes this part as a flashlight with a strong, powerful but narrow beam that allows you to focus on the task at hand . What it doesn’t allow you to do is see the big picture – the information on the periphery that’s more easily brought to the brain’s attention during periods of ‘unfocus’. To continue with the flashlight analogy, the beam that allows you to reach far and wide is the default mode network (DMN) or what Dr Pillay calls the "unfocused network". The DMN is a collection of brain regions that are active during rest and usually de-activate during focused tasks. These networks come alive when you daydream, tinker with a hobby, dabble in a field different to your area of expertise and even when you doodle. Spending time in each of these ‘unfocused’ states often leads to those eureka moments that can fail to come during times of intense focus. Building time into your day to incorporate some of these unfocused activities is essential for the brain to function at its best, […]

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