How to be less afraid of boredom

This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month, join the Vox Membership program today. When was the last time you felt utterly, stupefyingly, mind-numbingly bored? It might’ve been when you languished in the waiting room at a doctor’s office for 10 minutes too long. Or you felt your eyes glaze over in the middle of a philosophy class. Perhaps it was on a never-ending drive wherein your toddler insisted on hearing the same song over and over and over again. Maybe you are exceedingly bored right now (in which case, I’m sorry, and I hope to recapture your attention). Boredom is a common occurrence in the ebb and flow of life. It’s usually marked by a feeling of restlessness and agitation, says James Danckert, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Waterloo and the co-author of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom. A hunch that you must get out of here immediately. There is a functional aspect to boredom, though. The emotion is motivating, meant to spur you to action: This thing you’re doing is not fulfilling or meaningful, so go find something else that is. Some are better at listening to that alarm than others, Danckert says, and those who say they never get bored are probably more skilled at dealing with it. Those who respond productively to the messages boredom sends have the power to make changes in their lives, big and small, which is great for you and bad for boredom. “Boredom doesn’t do the hard work of telling you what to do,” Danckert says. “It just tells you you need to do something else.” It’s up to you to figure out what that is. A desire for something different While you’ve surely experienced boredom at some point or another, have you stopped to consider why? Erin Westgate, an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Florida who studies boredom, defines the feeling as one in which we don’t want to or can’t engage with what we’re doing, either because we lack the attention to do it — because the task is too easy or too difficult — or it lacks meaning. Boredom can strike momentarily — the impossibility of focusing while reading a dense book, for instance — or it can take root over a longer period of time, such as when you find yourself working an unfulfilling job. Boredom can be fairly universal: Few find waiting in line at the DMV a particularly riveting experience. But it is individual, too. A movie you consider engrossing may be a snooze to another viewer. This is why some people find being alone with their thoughts excruciating, while others revel in mind wandering, Westgate says. Sitting with your inner monologue absent other distractions is not equivalent to being bored, at least not for everyone. However, it can be boring if you don’t particularly enjoy solitude. Another common misconception: “People often conflate boredom with not having anything to do,” Westgate says. On the contrary, if your day consists of monotonous, repetitive tasks, you may not have much downtime but feel bored. The uber-busy who claim to crave boredom may in fact be yearning for quiet contendedness, a moment to relax. It’s true that filling your days with constant activities and entertainment may prevent you from getting bored in the first place. While this doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad thing, if you’re constantly masking boredom with another podcast or just one more episode, “you are preventing yourself from knowing when you’ve gone off track from what you value and what you care about and what you can give to the world,” Westgate says. Your perception of boredom can also impact how often you experience it. Those who see being bored as an impediment and frustration tend to be bored more often, says Wijnand Van Tilburg, a senior psychology lecturer at the University of Essex. On the contrary, those who see boredom as an inevitability of life get less bored and, when they do, cope with it more effectively. Don’t mistake boredom for a completely innocuous force: it can lead to potentially negative behaviors and outcomes like self-harm, impulsivity, depression, anxiety, greater consumption of alcohol and other illicit substances, attention problems, low motivation, and poor work performance. And despite anecdotal evidence that says otherwise, boredom doesn’t lead to inspired breakthroughs and increased creativity, research shows. Instead, it’s the moderately engaging activities, like showering or taking a walk, that actually lead to inspiration. The shower or the walk is neither so engrossing or boring as to distract your thoughts from churning — that’s the sweet spot you should be aiming for. Making the most of boredom So how can you better deal with boredom when it strikes? How can you adequately decode what your boredom is signaling? When the feeling does arise, use it as a reminder that what you’re doing isn’t meaningful and to seek out something that is, experts say. This will differ depending on the context. You might pop in a podcast while folding laundry to help make the chore feel less like drudgery. Perhaps you could head to YouTube to find a bread-making tutorial on a dreary afternoon. “It doesn’t really matter what it is,” Danckert says, “but you have to deem it to be valid and worth doing.” For circumstances where you’re unable to up and leave, such as school or work, Westgate suggests trying to make the experience more profound. “Focus on why am I here and what’s the deeper purpose it’s serving so that the experience feels more meaningful,” she says. Or maybe you’re growing impatient on a long road trip: Try to find challenges or ways to make the situation more stimulating. Car games exist for a reason. Or make up your own. “My brother and I, growing up, used to play this game called ‘Who would you ask for help?’” Westgate says. “In this room right now, if you had to pick one person to ask for help, who would it be and why?” Of course, the solution to a soul-crushingly boring job might be to find another one that gives your life more meaning and purpose. Since this isn’t exactly easy or realistic for many people, Danckert suggests reframing your current employment situation: You’re not living to work, you’re working to live. That is, your job gives you money which allows you to do meaningful activities in your free time. For more short-term boredom, like waiting in line for a sandwich, Westgate says there’s nothing wrong with using your phone as entertainment to pass the time. “If looking at your phone is a form of distraction for a few minutes, that lets you stick with that boring, uncomfortable activity that you still need to do, that’s probably fine,” she says. “I think the problem becomes when that is our response to all boredom.” If you’re using your phone as a crutch every time you feel the slightest whisper of boredom, you may develop some unhealthy habits — like scrolling on the sidelines at your kid’s soccer game or while driving. In fact, constantly scrolling through short videos, like on TikTok, increases boredom, a study found. “It reduces attention capacity, it reduces perceptions of meaning in one’s activity,” Van Tilburg says. It “increases boredom, even though people think that doing so will help alleviate it.” Instead of using your devices as a boredom security blanket, Van Tilburg suggests getting more comfortable breaking it up in myriad, tangible ways, like striking up a conversation while in line for coffee or creating phone-free areas at home (like the bedroom and bathroom). Try to embrace mind wandering instead of fearing silence. Boredom is a lot like goldilocks: You shouldn’t avoid it completely, but too much of it isn’t good either. Life doesn’t need to be a monotonous fog, nor is it supposed to be perpetually rapturously engaging. “Sometimes,” Van Tilburg says, “a little discomfort is useful to discover new things and develop new interests.”

What really matters

How to be less afraid of boredom