How good are you at relaxing? Look at the shapes above. You can choose to ignore the shapes, as you will not be tested on them. All you have to do is look at them for around 30 seconds and try to relax.
What were you thinking about just now?
Sorry for the deception, but this test isn’t actually about relaxation but mind-wandering. Match up your thoughts to those on the scale below to find your mind-wandering score.
1 out of 4 Nothing beyond the colour and shapes of the objects (eg: “That’s a yellow circle, blue square etc”)
2 out of 4 Thoughts related to the shapes/task/environment (eg: “That’s a nice round shape”; “What’s the point of this test?”; “Do the shapes have any significance?”; “It’s cold in here!”)
3 out of 4 Extrapolation from the shapes (eg: “That yellow circle is like the sun, which reminds me of my holiday”; “The blue square makes me think of the sea”)
4 out of 4 Proper wandering (eg: “I thought about the people I was talking to this morning”; “What am I going to have for lunch?”; “I must phone my mother”)
Although this test is extremely simple, it’s actually a great measure of people’s individual tendency towards mind-wandering versus focusing on the task in hand. Indeed the neuroscientists who invented the test found that wanderers and focusers showed different patterns of brain connectivity, even when they were not currently engaged in the test.
For a fully referenced version of this article, go to benambridge.com Fancy some more quizzes? Order Psy-Q by Ben Ambridge (Profile Books, £8.99) or £6.99 frombookshop.theguardian.com
