By Abraham Riesman and Melissa Dahl
There's a lot of talk these days about mindfulness: Professional football players, congressmen, and even kindergartners are learning the gentle art of staying focused on the here and the now. And there's nothing wrong with mindfulness -- but it would be a mistake to focus exclusively on it, especially at the expense of ignoring something you might call mindlessness. Spacing out from time to time is beneficial for your psychological health, too, particularly when it comes to tasks that require a little creativity or abstract thinking.
Watch the latest edition of the Science of Us animated video series to feel better about your wandering mind; while you're at it, you can check out our previous episodes, too. (The last one, for example, explored the incredibly important subject of "how to speak cat.") Just, you know -- maybe try to hold off on the spacing out until after you watch the videos.
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