DW Science explainer on the default mode network: what your brain does when you aren't focusing on anything, and why it's important.

Doing nothing might be the ultimate brain hack. When you're bored, the brain goes into default mode network. It's not only healthy for you, but it may also shape the very essence of your identity. You know when you lock your phone and the screen goes black?

It seems like it's not doing anything. But it's not doing nothing. It's syncing your messages, updating apps and running other background processes. Imagine you're sitting on a bus, staring out of a window, taking a shower or walking, and you get that feeling of doing nothing and letting your mind drift?

It's going over your memories, shaping your sense of who you are, imagining possible futures, helping you understand other people and connecting ideas. Scientists conducted brain-imaging experiments in the 1990s and early 2000s to find out which regions of the brain were active during demanding tasks, like solving a math problem or memory exercise. But to measure that, they needed a so-called baseline. They needed to know the level of brain activity at rest and during demanding tasks.