Let’s talk about how to be bored in a healthy way.
You may have encountered confusing things about boredom before: „Nobody is bored anymore because there’s an endless stream of information and entertainment to be consumed online, and that’s really bad for your mental health!“… but also, „nobody gets enough stimulation anymore, modern life means we are all wild animals in captivity, and that’s really bad for your mental health“!
Both of these statements feel instinctively true for many of us, we can relate to being constantly overstimulated as much as to constantly being understimulated… and yet, that feels really contradictory, doesn’t it?
The reason why this contradiction exists is that there are actually different ways to be bored and different kinds of stimulation.
Your brain does very much need to be exercised. Think about your body and movement. You can probably think of times you noticed you’re feeling like crap due to a lack of movement. You may have been in a long car ride before, or had to sit still during a long lecture or meeting, or had to stay in bed due to injury/illness… and it doesn’t feel good. You may get restless, antsy, irritated, down, tired etc. - the very same thing happens to your brain when there’s not enough mental „movement“. Muscles want to be used and so does your brain.
But „using your brain“ doesn’t just mean „being busy“, and that’s where the seemingly contradictory part comes from: Many of us are busy but not engaged.
You can be busy (and therefore not bored) all day long without actually engaging your brain in a beneficial way. We scroll through social media or short form videos, and hours pass without us ever feeling like we are „not doing anything“ because we are receiving novelty and input.
That explains the type of boredom that can be really bad for your mental health. We can even re-use one of the body examples here: someone who has to stay on bed rest in a hospital for a longer time may be bored in a detrimental way. While they may be able to keep themselves occupied by being on TikTok all day, they are away from their loved ones (so there’s a lack of social stimulation), unable to access their usual hobbies or interests (so there’s a lack of mental stimulation), experiencing a lack of autonomy (so there’s a sense of powerlessness) and uncertainty over the future (so there’s a lack of making goals).
All this means they can’t „work out“ their brain, and they may notice negative effects, such as increased anxiety, worse mood, shorter temper, feeling mentally „foggy“, dwelling on negative thoughts, worse sleep. The longer this hospital stay lasts, the longer these effects may linger afterwards. The patient may even develop depression (which can then become a cycle of depression feeding a lack of interest or motivation, which in turn feeds the understimulation, which feeds the depression…)
This type of long-lasting or even chronic boredom of course doesn’t just happen in medical settings. It can happen due to other life circumstances as well, such as controlling relationships etc.- but luckily the temporary type of boredom is quite different to that. Occasional boredom that arises from temporary inactivity or monotony (such as washing the dishes and your thoughts drifting while you do it) is actually great and necessary!
Some people feel tempted to spice any monotonous task or period of waiting up with stimulation, to avoid any boredom. but it can be beneficial to not do that. Here’s why:
Your thoughts drifting and wandering is good for your brain. It encourages both creativity (daydreaming) and self-reflection (turning attention inwards to your goals, needs, wants, values)
It also encourages „brain clean-up“. When your thoughts wander freely, you often subconsciously work through problems or memories you are carrying with you
It decreases mental fatigue. Human brains are surprisingly bad at multitasking. So only doing the boring task at hand (eating, showering, doing dishes, even pooping) without background noise can be a nice break where your brain can switch back to „active mode“ rather than „reactive mode“
Talking about „reactive mode“: if you often keep your brain busy by passively consuming content, it may get stuck in that. That’s obviously a simplistic and not super scientific way to explain it, but the fact remains that the stimulation your brain craves is the active kind:
actively interacting with other beings (humans, pets)
actively engaging with new or challenging tasks (this can be something like puzzles, sudoku, math problems but also reading, writing, painting, knitting but also learning a language, learning to code, learning to dance, but also traveling or visiting a new neighborhood but also… you get it)
actively planning, structuring, making decisions (about your future, about your day or just about the next five minutes)
actively engaging the senses (doing something with your hands/body like crafting, playing with sensory toys, exercising, or trying new foods, or really giving all your attention to a song rather than just having music on as background noise…)
Healthy boredom means having enough opportunities to actively engage the brain balanced with enough opportunities for your thoughts to wander.
