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Were you searching for an article about how to not be bored? If so, great! You came to the right place.
However, I won’t introduce you to the top 10 ways to overcome boredom. Instead, what you’ll discover is how to be even more bored.
“Wait a second, that’s not what I signed up for,” you might be thinking.
But before you think about clicking away, let’s explore why going with your boredom, instead of running away from it, can change everything for you.
We are used to keeping our brains busy all the time. As a result, boredom became a relic of the past.
Past are the times when we had to stand in a line doing nothing but standing in a line. Our digital extensions are always at hand so that when boredom comes up we can quickly evade it.
This is where our kryptonite lies.
We are dependent on technology fighting our boredom for us. What if, at some point, this technology is not there for us? How do we escape this overpowering wave of suppressed boredom?
We don’t.
It’s okay to do nothing; it’s okay to be bored. And more so, it’s necessary to seek out boredom, not to make us feel bad, but to leave boredom behind for good.
Why Am I Bored?
There are many reasons why you are bored, and there are even more ways to avoid boredom.
Some common reasons for boredom are monotony, a need for novelty, a lack of stimulation, loneliness, and having a boring inner space, among others.
While these are all fine reasons to justify your boredom, it wouldn’t serve you to blame yourself, other people, or the environment for this boredom.
Though the only one responsible is yourself.
Many of us unconsciously create a context where boredom can hit us hard. We bombard ourselves with constant stimulation through music, podcasts, audiobooks, TV, social media, chat messengers, and everything else our technology provides us with, just to avoid spending time with ourselves.
This has turned us into a generation of digital zombies.
And as studies have shown, this can have huge negative effects on our health and well-being.
Oh, and food, don’t forget food.
Poor nutrition is one of the major contributors to disease. And because food is an excellent stimulation, and many of us have access to an abundance of it, eating turned into a compensation mechanism. And our favorite compensation is fatty and sugary food, plus overeating of it.
So, the chain goes like that; boredom leads to overeating unhealthy foods leads to disease.
Hence, our inability to deal with boredom has dire consequences for our health.
We are so used to stimulation that we feel uneasy with an absence of it. Who is this person talking inside my head that I have previously silenced so successfully? And why can’t this person say something interesting?
While, in the past, boredom was a luxury good for the wealthy, in modern times, boredom has become a sign of poverty.
Yet, the ironic thing is that people are often bored when they do something. The thing they are doing is so out of alignment with their true being that it bores them to death.
But every time we escape from boredom into our digital refuges, we make ourselves even more susceptible to boredom.
The energy behind the boredom, because we never release it, accumulates until we can’t suppress it anymore and it breaks out in the form of nihilism and depression.
Active versus Passive Boredom
Generally speaking, there are two types of boredom, active and passive boredom.
Active boredom is when you have something to focus on and accomplish, but the task isn’t engaging. For instance, I have experienced this type of boredom at previous desk jobs. Active boredom presents a clear goal, but a frustrating task. Usually, these activities are largely unpleasant and lead to feeling anxious, impatient, and restless.
Passive boredom is what most of us associate with boredom. With passive boredom, you don’t have a clear goal in mind. This type of boredom happens when you’re lying on the couch, you’re lost in thought, or when you’re waiting for someone (and you’re lacking something to distract yourself). Usually, passive boredom is more fun than active boredom. And even though it is uncomfortable for many people, it leads to interesting insights and ideas.
Passive boredom can also lead to active boredom. You want to distract yourself with a task while you are passively bored, but instead of alleviating the boredom, you are now actively bored.
6 Benefits of Boredom
Boredom improves your mental health
As stated earlier, our brains are often overloaded with information and distractions, which, in turn, drains our focus energy. Because we want to use our attention for the things we care about, stepping away from stimulation can help our brains relax and reduce stress.
Boredom increases creativity
Constantly being busy, negatively impacts your creativity and ingenuity. Boredom is the solution to this, as it leads to daydreaming, which stimulates your imagination and enables creativity and problem-solving.
Boredom motivates a search for novelty
Although we are not trying to avoid boredom here, boredom is a motivator to try new things and seek out adventures. When you are bored with your current life situation, you are more likely to challenge the status quo and blaze your own trail.
Boredom motivates the pursuit of new goals
Self-reflection is a byproduct of boredom. And, often, when we are bored, we enter into autobiographical planning. This is when we reflect on big moments in our lives, create a narrative, set new goals, and figure out the steps to take to achieve them. Hence, boredom with your day-to-day activities encourages you to pursue new goals and projects more desirable.
Boredom improves self-control
Boredom affects the ability to focus and pay attention and, often, we are bored because we lack the cognitive resources to focus. This means that the ability to focus is related to the ability to handle boredom. Learning to endure, or rather enjoy, boredom positively affects your self-control abilities, including regulation of thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Boredom improves self awareness
Boredom enables you to be more aware of your inner space. You get to know your inner voice, emotions, and sensations, and what they mean to you. It is a way to reconnect with yourself and discover what self-limiting processes are holding you back.
How Can I Make Myself Bored?
Now, this is the interesting part where we don’t let boredom choose us, but instead, we choose boredom.
Deciding to engage in boredom is the first step to mastery over it. Eventually, you’ll never have to figure out how to overcome boredom because you’ll enjoy the boredom.
“Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity.” – Robert M. Pirsig
Interrupt Yourself
To get bored is simple. The next time you catch yourself picking up your phone or going to the fridge, interrupt yourself. Ask yourself why you want to do what you were about to do.
If it was because of boredom, become aware of the urge to escape this feeling and just sit with it.
Observe it. Be with it. Play with it.
You’ll be surprised about how many things you do to escape a feeling of boredom.
Identify what it is you usually do to escape boredom, and every time you’re about to do those things interrupt yourself.
Most of us don’t like being interrupted by others, but it can be a powerful practice when you use it intentionally.
Take Boredom Breaks Between Your Tasks
Many of us rush from one task to another, and when we take breaks, we are not really taking a break. Instead, we busy ourselves with easy-going stimulation, like scrolling social media, watching cat videos, and talking to a friend.
What I’m suggesting is to take boredom breaks between your tasks. What this involves is, well, doing nothing.
What you could “do” is becoming aware of your breath; some people call this meditation. But for many, this can be hard work as it involves focusing.
As an alternative, let your mind wander. Don’t try to steer it in any direction, don’t try to actively think about things, just embrace the unfiltered information of your mind.
Many influential people, such as Einstein, Darwin, and Nietzsche, attribute some of their best insights and breakthroughs to daydreaming.
After you have been bored for a while (and didn’t google how to not be bored while doing nothing) resume your daily activities. Also, observe how you feel after those boredom breaks and how they affect the quality of your work.
What to Do When I’m Bored?
The next time you are bored, sit with the boredom. Don’t run away from it. Explore the boredom.
Boredom has such a bad reputation, but if you sit with it for a while you’ll see that it’s just a mixture of feelings and sensations. Boredom can’t physically hurt you, and feeling into it will gradually reduce its intensity. You’ll see that, when you look at the boredom, it loses its power.
Neale Donald Walsch put it accurately:
“What you resist, persists. What you look at disappears. That is, it ceases to have its illusory form. You see it for what it Is. And what Is can always be changed. It is only what Is Not that cannot be changed. Therefore, to change the Isness, move into it. Do not resist it. Do not deny it.”
By looking at it, you are releasing the stored up energy behind it, and eventually, you’ll no longer feel bored.
What you can do in those moments is to breathe. Every time you are bored, turn it into a meditation. Make this feeling of boredom the focus of your meditation.
Suddenly, boredom has become your mindfulness practice. With time, you’ll even look forward to boredom, except that you’ll no longer experience it as uncomfortable but pleasant.
When you surrender to the boredom completely it turns into a feeling of calmness and serenity.
Let boredom become your friend. Being able to sit with yourself and enjoy your own company is a powerful skill.
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“Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.” – Thomas Stephen Szasz
Luka
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