Just staring into space? Perhaps not – daydreaming helps children concentrate, and makes them perform better in tests

Daily Mail:

Daydreaming could help children oncentrate – and even perform better in tests, researchers claim.

The children also feel less anxious and more motivated to perform, according to a review of studies on the value of time to reflect.

Education should focus more on giving children time to think, claim researchers at the University of Southern California.

A study found that introspection – time to reflect – may be harder and harder to come by but can also be an increasingly valuable part of life.

Researchers from the University of Southern California studied literature from neuroscience and psychological science to explore what it meant to our brains to be ‘at rest’.

Research has looked at the ‘default mode’ network of the brain, which becomes active when we focuse inward.

It suggests that individual differences in brain activity during rest are correlated with components of emotional functioning, such as self-awareness and moral judgment, as well as different aspects of learning and memory, reports journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

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