“A focus on the present, dubbed mindfullness can make you happier and healthier. Training to deepen your immersion in the moment works by improving attention.”

Pulling into a parking garage you notice you have no recollection how you got there.
On reaching the bottom of a page in the book , you are frustarted that you have failed to understand what you just read. In conversation, you suddenly become aware that you have no idea what the person speaking to you has just said.

These episodes are symtoms of a distracted mind. You were thinking aout a vacation while reading a report or reliving a hurtful exchange with a friend instead of paying attention to the road or conversation.
Whether the mind journeys to the future or the past, whether the thoughts that whisked you away were useful, pleasant, or uncomfortable, the consequences are all the same. You missed the present, experience of the moment , as it was unfolding. Your mind was hijacked into mental time travel.

Distninct from deliberate daydreaming, our mind gets off track. Such mental meandering is tied to negative mood.
Chronic psychological stress, suffered by millions, may be built on a mind consumed by rumination, worry or fear about many topics. This type of diffused and unstable focus impairs performance too. In moments that demand quick decisions and action, the consequences of divereted attention and perception could be deadly.
The opposite of a wandering mind is a mindful one. Mindfulness is a mental mode of being engaged in the present moment without evaluating or emotionally reacting to it.