The Hidden Power of Boredom
Being bored is actually a very good thing for us. While most people are chasing ways to keep their brains stimulated, we can level up our lives by doing the opposite: learning to unplug, slow down, and embrace boredom.
What is Boredom?
- Boredom stems from a situation where none of the possible things that a person can realistically do appeal to the person in question. This renders the person inactive, and generally unhappy.
- There’s some evidence to suggest that being bored has a negative impact on work and learning. Studies show that bored workers have lower levels of performance, are more likely to make errors, or simply not show up.
- In the education context, bored students tend to receive lower test scores.
Boredom Helps us Establish Meaningful Goals
- When we’re bored, our mind-wandering becomes largely future-focused and we think a lot more about what we want from our life.
- Letting our brain wander and engage in autobiographical planning can be incredibly helpful in discovering and realising our learning goals.
Boredom Exposes us to Novelty
- To become better learners we need to be more comfortable exploring the adventure and novelty that boredom offers us.
- If we don’t allow ourselves to be bored we’d be less motivated to challenge accepted ideas and practices, and therefore miss out on opportunities to further our own knowledge and understanding of the world.
Boredom Boosts Creativity
- When we’re bored our minds wander to interesting (and surprisingly productive) places.
- Instead of having a narrow focus on any specific task, we begin to adopt a more diffuse mode of thinking, as our brain is free to jump between different ideas and concepts, which is the ideal state for creative problem solving and lateral thinking.
Boredom Enhances Productivity
- If we can endure feeling bored, we can train our brain to be comfortable with mentally unpleasant experiences.
- So, instead, we should be embracing boredom. That way, we become more resilient to its discomforting feeling and stay focused for longer.