No More Boredom

Posted on 13. Jun, 2008 by Julia Barnard in Articles, procrastination

When I worked in an office, one of my favourite boredom busting activities was to make things out of paper clips. Did it relieve my boredom, get my work done or make the job any more exciting? Definitely not. It seems when we are bored we have this tendency to engage in activities that will increase our boredom and make us feel worse about ourselves, especially when we realise hours have passed and we have produced nothing meaningful. You may rummage around the web and find yourself reading things and playing games you would not ordinarily do. They may be great distractions but are they relieving boredom?

The problem with boredom

We can be bored for short periods of time (waiting for a bus), or we can be bored and fed up with life in general. For some reason we are no longer able to amuse ourselves and our environment seems dull. Problems can arise through such prolonged periods of boredom. Stress is increased, we may feel lethargic or develop depression. Life may seem so boring that drugs and alcohol seem like good solutions.

Avoiding and overcoming boredom

Fortunately boredom is a mind state and as such is not inevitable. It is about how you interact with and perceive your world. Research conducted by Eastwood (2007) found that the people more likely to be bored were those who sought stimulation from their environment, rather than internally. Your environment will not be constantly changing so you need to enjoy it as it is. The change must come from within therefore. Here are some ideas to help you.

Tune into yourself. Ask yourself ‘why am I bored’? Is there something missing from your life? Is there something you want to change? Discover what you want and what you enjoy. Now do something about it.

Whatever you are doing, try to keep actively involved. If you don’t attend fully to whatever you are doing, it makes the task meaningless. Therefore it becomes boring and you end up bored. Be engaged and find meaning in all that you do.

To keep any activity interesting (no matter how mundane it seems to you), try to keep it challenging. Else you will end up feeling bored, lose motivation and may even stop it altogether. Keeping up the challenge is important for flow experiences, which bring happiness and will not elicit boredom. If you are out of challenges, maybe it is time for a change? I eventually left that office job as there were no new challenges for me and I pursued a whole new career path.

Keep busy. Having lots to do will make it difficult to feel bored. If you are bored with your life in general, revive your interests and hobbies or develop new ones. Make sure you get a good balance in your life however – we don’t want you to increase your stress by trying to do too much.

Be okay being alone. Meditation and relaxation may help as they can assist you in being at ease with your thoughts without requiring the environment to entertain you.

And if all else fails:

Tags: activities, boredom, depression, flow experience, happiness, hobbies, meaning, motivation, procrastination, relaxation, stress, work