How People With ADHD Can Harness Mind Wandering and Enhance Creativity

When the mind drifts, it’s often seen as a distraction. But for some people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), that wandering may actually be a hidden strength.

New research reveals that intentionally letting the mind wander may help explain why individuals with ADHD often excel in creative tasks.

“We found that people with more ADHD traits, such as lack of attention, hyperactivity, or impulsivity, score higher on creative achievements,” said lead researcher Dr. Han Fang in a press release. “Additionally, we found that mind wandering, particularly deliberate mind wandering, where people allow their ‘thoughts to wander on purpose,’ was associated with greater creativity in people with ADHD. This suggests that mind wandering may be an underlying factor connecting ADHD and creativity.”

How Mind Wandering Affects People With ADHD

ADHD is known for its challenges: impulsiveness, restlessness, and trouble maintaining focus. However, throughout history, many people with ADHD have transformed these traits into strengths, particularly in creative areas.

The question scientists have grappled with is how. Part of the answer lies in how attention sometimes slips — and what happens when it does. Fang pointed out that not all mind wandering is created equal:

“It can be a loss of concentration, where your mind may drift from subject to subject. This is ‘spontaneous mind-wandering.’ Another type is ‘deliberate mind wandering,’ where people give themselves the freedom to drift off-subject, where they ‘allow their thoughts to take a different course.’ Psychiatrists have developed ways of measuring how much people are subject to these different tendencies.”

Read More: ADHD Is Difficult to Diagnose, But Getting the Right Treatment Is Crucial

Linking ADHD Traits, Mind Wandering, and Creativity

Fang’s team carried out two separate studies involving over 750 adults from Europe and the U.K., including both individuals with ADHD and neurotypical controls. Each group completed standard psychological questionnaires measuring:

• ADHD traits — levels of inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity
• Types of mind wandering — distinguishing between spontaneous and deliberate
• Creative ability — tested through classic divergent-thinking tasks, like coming up with unusual uses for everyday objects
• Functional impairments — such as difficulty staying organized or completing tasks

The team discovered that ADHD traits were linked to both mind wandering and creativity. Participants with more inattentive or impulsive traits tended to report greater mind wandering and higher creative achievement. They also found that deliberate mind wandering fueled innovation. Choosing to let thoughts drift intentionally helped explain the creative edge observed in people with ADHD.

However, spontaneous mind wandering did the opposite. Uncontrolled daydreaming was tied instead to the everyday challenges of ADHD, like disorganization and lapses in focus.

How Harnessing Mind Wandering Can Help

The implications are promising. Instead of simply trying to suppress distractions in people with ADHD, experts can teach them to steer those drifting thoughts.

“This may have practical implications for both psychoeducation and treatment. For psychoeducation, specially designed programs or courses that teach individuals how to utilize their spontaneous ideas, for example, turning them into creative outputs, could help individuals with ADHD traits harness the benefits of mind wandering. For treatment, ADHD-tailored mindfulness-based interventions that seek to decrease spontaneous mind wandering or transform it into more deliberate forms may reduce functional impairments and enhance treatment outcomes,” said Fang.

By shedding light on deliberate mind wandering as a link between ADHD and creativity, this study reinterprets the narrative. What’s often viewed as a cognitive flaw might, under the right conditions, become a wellspring of originality.

Read More: ADHD Diagnoses Seem to Have Increased on the Internet – Is It Really That Common?

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

• American Psychiatric Association. What is ADHD?
• European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Study confirms that people with ADHD can be more creative. The reason may be that they let their mind wander