Is an unhappy mind a wandering mind, or the reverse?
What it argues
Experience sampling from about 2,250 adults: people mind-wander in nearly half of sampled moments, and they are less happy when they do, including when the wandering is to pleasant topics. The temporal ordering suggests the wandering precedes the unhappiness rather than following it.
The probe
Compare your worst hours this week against your least demanding hours. If they coincide, the problem is not the work.
The source
A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind, Science 330 — Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, 2010. The link goes to the text or to a catalogue record for it, not to a summary. This one is a catalogue record: the entry gives you the question and the probe, not the argument in the author's words.
Read next
What subject does your brain return to when nothing else claims it?