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Speaker 1: Pushkin, there's one trait that my mom and I have

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Speaker 1: in common.

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Speaker 2: And you hear me.

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Speaker 1: Now I can see you too.

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Speaker 3: Okay, wait a minute, let me put the TV off.

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Speaker 1: So this is for a whole podcast season that we're

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Speaker 1: doing on stuff that I'm bad at. Okay, this is

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Speaker 1: a whole episode about boredom because I feel like I'm

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Speaker 1: pretty bad at boredom.

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Speaker 3: You are.

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Speaker 1: The seventeenth century French philosopher Blaze Pascal was convinced that

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Speaker 1: he knew the single greatest challenge facing our species. All

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Speaker 1: of humanity's problems, he said, stem from man's inability to

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Speaker 1: sit down quietly in a room alone. Blaze Pascal was

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Speaker 1: lucky he didn't meet me or my mom. But I

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Speaker 1: feel like I'm bad at boredom because you're bad at boredom.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I didn't do well with doing nothing, as

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Speaker 3: a matter of fact, waiting for you.

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Speaker 4: If I wouldn't made a puzzle, I couldn't just sit

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Speaker 4: and wait for you to call back. I don't know

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Speaker 4: if it's iridity you. I just learned behavior and.

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Speaker 1: I got it from you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of the many wonderful things you got

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Speaker 3: from you.

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Speaker 1: About Psychologists define boredom as a transient, unpleasant, affective state

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Speaker 1: in which an individual feels a pervasive lack of interest

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Speaker 1: such that it takes pained conscious effort to attend to

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Speaker 1: an activity. But you may not need a professional to

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Speaker 1: tell you how dreadful boredom is. Many of us have

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Speaker 1: experienced what happens when you're stuck in some dull lecture

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Speaker 1: or a long checkout line, or folding the laundry, or

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Speaker 1: doing some humdrum task at work, or reading a novel

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Speaker 1: you're losing interest in. That's when that yucky feeling seeps

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Speaker 1: into your brain.

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Speaker 4: I literally have no patience whatsoever. There's never been one

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Speaker 4: of my virtues. It's not as bad now because I

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Speaker 4: have a cell for so I don't find it as dramatically,

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Speaker 4: emotionally to dramatic as it used to be.

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Speaker 1: This season is all about the happiness challenges that I

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Speaker 1: struggle with, and boredom is a big one.

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Speaker 4: My one big memory of you and boredem the when

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Speaker 4: we took you to eat of them and you were

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Speaker 4: bored to death.

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Speaker 1: I have always hated being bored And.

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Speaker 4: You sat on the train very nicely, very quietly, and

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Speaker 4: you made up a song about borederm. You sat there

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Speaker 4: and did boredom, boom board and bored and bord and

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Speaker 4: you sang for like fifteen minutes.

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Speaker 1: But the research shows I'm not alone. Take one study

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Speaker 1: by the psychologist Tim Wilson at his colleagues. They tested

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Speaker 1: just how far the average person would go to avoid

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Speaker 1: feeling bored. They stuck individuals in a small room without

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Speaker 1: their phones, said please entertain yourself with your thoughts as

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Speaker 1: best you can, and left them there for up to

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Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. But the subjects were given one activity they

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Speaker 1: could turn to if they got really, really desperate. They

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Speaker 1: were handed a small button, which, when pressed, would deliver

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Speaker 1: a four milliamp electric shock. Four milli amps isn't agony,

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Speaker 1: but it isn't exactly painless either. Would a brief period

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Speaker 1: of boredom be so bad that people would resort to

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Speaker 1: shocking themselves just as stay entertained, Yes, yes it would.

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Speaker 1: A third of subjects chose to shock themselves. One guy

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Speaker 1: pressed his button nearly two hundred times. Now, I haven't

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Speaker 1: been so bored that I've opted to shock myself, but

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Speaker 1: I have tried other equally pathetic ways to escape boredom.

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Speaker 1: I can't remember the last time I stood in a

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Speaker 1: checkout line without whipping out my phone. I repeatedly recheck

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Speaker 1: email inboxes that I know are empty, and I rescroll

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Speaker 1: news sites that I've already read through. I've watched entire

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Speaker 1: seasons of reality TV shows, not because I enjoy them,

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Speaker 1: but just to have something to do on work free nights,

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Speaker 1: and I boredom snack a lot. These activities are a

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Speaker 1: huge waste of time and pretty embarrassing for a so

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Speaker 1: called happiness expert, but I can't help but turn to

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Speaker 1: them whenever I start to feel that sting of tedium?

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Speaker 1: Can science show us a healthier way to navigate or

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Speaker 1: maybe even embrace boredom? Could being able to sit down

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Speaker 1: quietly in a room alone deliver important benefits that we

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Speaker 1: just don't expect. Our minds are constantly telling us what

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Speaker 1: to do to be happy. But what if our minds

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Speaker 1: are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,

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Speaker 1: leading us away from what will really make us happy.

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Speaker 1: The good news is that understanding the science of the

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Speaker 1: mind can point us all back in the right direction.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie Santos.

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Speaker 1: Sandy Man's first job after graduation was working in a

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Speaker 1: clothing store. There weren't many customers, and the hours kind

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Speaker 1: of dragged.

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Speaker 5: We weren't allowed to stand around. We had to look

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Speaker 5: busy unfolding and then refolding sweaters. So it's mindless, mind destroying,

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Speaker 5: meaningless task unfold, refold, unfold. So I guess that's where

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Speaker 5: my journey into boredom started.

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Speaker 1: Sandy's the author of the Science of Boredom, The Upside

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Speaker 1: and Downside of Downtime. You might think that boredom is

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Speaker 1: just this like deep part of the human condition, you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the men emotions that we all share. But

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Speaker 1: you've argued in the book that if we look back historically,

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Speaker 1: boredom the way we think about it right now seems

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Speaker 1: to be historically a relatively recent phenomena. Are kind of

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Speaker 1: mentions of boredom are relatively recent. So give me a

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Speaker 1: sense of the sort of history of boredom.

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Speaker 5: Well, I think the first mention of it was Charles

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Speaker 5: Dickens when you refer to Onui, which is boredom, in

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Speaker 5: one of his earlier books. So that will be in

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Speaker 5: the nineteenth century.

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Speaker 1: And so we sometimes think about boredom as being inherent

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Speaker 1: in a person like you're an easily bored person.

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Speaker 5: So you're right, So we can be bored and prone.

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Speaker 5: Some people are more prone to bored than others. And

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Speaker 5: there's a boredom proneess scale to measure how bored and

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Speaker 5: prone you are.

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Speaker 1: Ooh a bored and prone to scale. I decided to

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Speaker 1: try it out on my mom. We answer these statements

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Speaker 1: from one highly disagree to seven. I really agree yep.

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Speaker 1: Home game time always seems to be passing slowly.

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Speaker 2: Six.

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Speaker 1: In situations where I have to wait, such as in

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Speaker 1: a line, I get very restless. It seems that the

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Speaker 1: same things are on television or movies all the time.

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Speaker 1: Seven That would be sure. I am good at waiting patiently.

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Speaker 3: One.

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Speaker 1: As I suspected, I am very high on the boredom

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Speaker 1: pronus scale, and my mom is even worse.

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Speaker 3: Pretty bad.

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Speaker 1: But susceptibility to boredom isn't just about what's inside us,

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Speaker 1: So sometimes.

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Speaker 5: Our environment gives us cues that encourage us to be bored.

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Speaker 5: So there was this really interesting experiment where they got

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Speaker 5: people to do quite a boring, repetitive task, and they

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Speaker 5: slowed the clocks down in one of the experiments and

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Speaker 5: they left it normally.

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Speaker 1: In the other I tracked down a couple experiments like this.

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Speaker 1: The conclusions they reached are intriguing. When scientists gave people

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Speaker 1: a mundane task and sped up the clock, then participants thought, Wow,

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Speaker 1: times flying, I must be really engrossed in this. But

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Speaker 1: when people doing exactly the same task looked up to

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Speaker 1: see that the hands on the clock had barely moved,

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Speaker 1: then they tended to think, God, this must be so boring.

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Speaker 5: And similarly, they had another condition where they had noise

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Speaker 5: in the background, like a television going in the background.

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Speaker 5: So if we're struggling to concentrate, sometimes we might interpret

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Speaker 5: that as, oh, I'm struggling to a consture, I must

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Speaker 5: be bored so we'll rate something as more boring. So

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Speaker 5: these are sort of things into in the environment that

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Speaker 5: contribute to our perception of boredom.

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Speaker 1: But no matter whether the boredom is real or induced,

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Speaker 1: it's still a drag.

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Speaker 5: When I ask people and some of my research, what

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Speaker 5: does boredom feel like, a lot of the words us

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Speaker 5: with things like draining, demotivating, tired.

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Speaker 1: I might explain the dramatic metaphors we use her boredom.

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Speaker 1: We get bored to tears or out of our minds.

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Speaker 1: We even get bored to death. We're so scared of

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Speaker 1: boredom that we'll try anything to avoid it, like, for example,

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Speaker 1: filling up our calendars to the breaking point.

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Speaker 5: I think too many of us are too busy, too stressy,

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Speaker 5: too much in a hurry. We've got to be doing

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Speaker 5: and doing, and it's almost like a competition to see

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Speaker 5: who can be the most stressed.

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Speaker 1: We even turn to behaviors that are much more unhealthy

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Speaker 1: than a bit of overwork.

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Speaker 5: So that could be drugs, it could be driving too first,

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Speaker 5: It could be doing dangerous activities. It could be comfort eating.

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Speaker 5: Though all these things aren't really healthy. What they give

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Speaker 5: us that stimulation that we're desperately craving.

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Speaker 1: But nowadays you don't need to hop in a sports

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Speaker 1: card to banish boredom. You can just pull out your phone,

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Speaker 1: whether that's in a line, on a train, waiting for

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Speaker 1: a friend, or even sitting on the toilet. Yep, surveys

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Speaker 1: show that ninety percent of us take our phones to

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Speaker 1: the bathroom.

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Speaker 5: We've got the world at our fingertips. Now we should

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Speaker 5: not know what boredom is anymore, or our kids should

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Speaker 5: be saying mummy, what's boredom? You know, I don't know

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Speaker 5: what that is? What is it? And I would be saying, oh,

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Speaker 5: I remember when I was a lass, you know, we

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Speaker 5: used to have boredom, and they go, oh, what's that?

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Speaker 5: But we don't have that. Our kids seem to be

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Speaker 5: more bored than ever before. So we're in the what

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Speaker 5: I call this wizzy wizzy bang bang environment where everything

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Speaker 5: is noisy, flashy, wizzy, fast, and it's all new and novel,

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Speaker 5: constant newness and novel bombarding our senses. But the problem

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Speaker 5: is it's quite addictive.

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Speaker 1: Have we all become so used to having a library,

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Speaker 1: a cinema, and arkid and a shopping wall in our pockets,

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Speaker 1: then a minute without our phone seems like an eternity,

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Speaker 1: So we're.

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Speaker 5: Always after the next new thing, the next new thing

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Speaker 5: to stimulate us.

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Speaker 1: Sandy says that all this constant running from boredom is

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Speaker 1: a big problem, since there's a good argument that we

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Speaker 1: need it in our lives.

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Speaker 5: We want to make board and work for us so

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Speaker 5: we can get the benefits of it.

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Speaker 1: Boredom, like all human emotions, is probably there to teach

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Speaker 1: us something. If we let ourselves become bored what mighte

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Speaker 1: me learn? Sandy has a lab at the University of

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Speaker 1: Central Lancashire, so she stuck a group of students in

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Speaker 1: a small room to do nothing.

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Speaker 5: Some of them couldn't stand it, and after a five

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Speaker 5: ten minutes they said, now you know, I can't stand this.

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Speaker 5: But those who've got through that kind of pain threshold,

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Speaker 5: beyond that fidgity, frustrated, searching for stimulation phase that was

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Speaker 5: very uncomfortable that we labeled boredom. They got through that

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Speaker 5: and they went into this kind of zoned out phase

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Speaker 5: where the minds wondered and they chilled and they relaxed,

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Speaker 5: and they came out saying, you know, that was amazing.

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Speaker 5: That was really relaxing. I feel great, and it's like

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Speaker 5: having a warm bath and all this sort of stuff.

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Speaker 5: I thought I could offer this as a kind of

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Speaker 5: SPA activity. You know, you don't need anything else. I'll

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Speaker 5: just put them in a room in those stimulation.

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Speaker 1: I'm not all that convinced that I'd be able to

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Speaker 1: endure a board of SPA treatment. It still sounds kind

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Speaker 1: of scary.

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Speaker 5: I think the problem is that we don't get past

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Speaker 5: that stage. We just get rid of the boardom. We escape,

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Speaker 5: don't we don't let ourselves get through the pain barrier.

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Speaker 1: And Sidi promises that on the other side of that

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Speaker 1: pain barrier are some pretty wonderful things. But more on

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Speaker 1: that when the happiness lab returns in a moment.

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Speaker 2: In first grade, my teacher, Missus Shark, wrote a report

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Speaker 2: card for me which started with when I think of Jonathan,

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Speaker 2: I imagine him at the end of the line, shoes untied,

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Speaker 2: five feet behind everybody else, totally preoccupied, and yet.

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Speaker 1: Completely Neuroscientist Jonathan Schooler hasn't ever feared being born. He

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Speaker 1: even looks for opportunities to escape stimulation.

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Speaker 2: I have a long haulway, and I will just happily pace,

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Speaker 2: not in a worried way, but just in a sort

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Speaker 2: of playful way back and forth, and let my mind

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Speaker 2: go from one topic to the next topic to the

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Speaker 2: next topic.

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Speaker 1: The UC Santa Barbara professor long ago learned how to

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Speaker 1: break through the bored and pain barrier and to enjoy

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Speaker 1: what's called mind wandering.

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Speaker 5: Sort of.

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Speaker 2: The standard way that I think about mind wandering is

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Speaker 2: when the mind is captured by an internal train of

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Speaker 2: thought which is entirely unrelated to what's going on in

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Speaker 2: one external environment.

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Speaker 1: Our minds sometimes wander when we don't want them to,

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Speaker 1: stopping us from completing important or even enjoyable tasks.

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Speaker 2: My favorite example is when you're reading, and almost everybody

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Speaker 2: has had this experience of reading along and suddenly realizing

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Speaker 2: that their eyes have been moving across the page, and

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Speaker 2: yet their mind has been entirely elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: And this unintended mind wandering doesn't always feel good.

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Speaker 2: So there was a very influential study that was titled

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Speaker 2: A wandering Mind is an unhappy mind, and essentially what

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Speaker 2: they did was to have people be pained at random

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Speaker 2: times through their cell phones and ask them what they

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Speaker 2: were doing, whether or not their mind was attending to

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Speaker 2: what they were doing, and how happy or unhappy they were.

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Speaker 2: And what they found was that when people reported that

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Speaker 2: they were mind wandering, they were substantially less happy than

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Speaker 2: when they were on task, suggesting that mind wandering maybe

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Speaker 2: a significant source of unhappiness.

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Speaker 1: Jonathan was surprised when he first read the study because

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Speaker 1: it simply didn't fit with his own positive experience of

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Speaker 1: mind wandering.

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Speaker 2: Not only have I been mind wandering my whole life,

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Speaker 2: but I've been enjoying it.

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Speaker 1: Puzzled, he devised an experiment forcing subjects to perform an

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Speaker 1: incredibly monotonous task.

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Speaker 2: We have to press a button every time you see

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Speaker 2: a number, except for the number three, where you have

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Speaker 2: to withhold the response, and you can imagine that this

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Speaker 2: gets rather boring over time.

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Speaker 1: As expected, people found this task painfully boring.

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Speaker 2: I do not recommend this as entertainment.

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Speaker 1: And their overall mood dropped significantly.

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Speaker 2: They were markedly less happy at the end than they

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Speaker 2: were at the beginning.

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Speaker 1: But did some people make it through the task feeling

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Speaker 1: better than others? And were those the folks that let

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Speaker 1: their minds wander away from the job at hand. Every

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Speaker 1: few trials, Jonathan pinged subjects and asked.

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Speaker 2: Just now, were you paying attention to the task or

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Speaker 2: were you mind wandering? And the more often people mind

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Speaker 2: wandered while engaging in this task, the less their happiness dropped.

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Speaker 2: So it seemed that basically the mind wandering was insulating

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Speaker 2: them against the boredom, providing them with an engaging, entertaining

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Speaker 2: opportunity to sort of escape from the doldrums of this task.

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Speaker 1: But Jonathan also found that this only applies to a

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Speaker 1: certain kind of mind wandering, a train of thought that

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Speaker 1: causes you to worry about your credit card debt or

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Speaker 1: fred about your next performance review, isn't a recipe for happiness.

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Speaker 1: Jonathan found that you'd actually be happier concentrating on a

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Speaker 1: dull task than entertaining yourself with those kinds of thoughts.

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Speaker 1: But if you begin thinking about something interesting and cool,

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Speaker 1: then you'd actually be happier in the experiment.

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Speaker 2: So this appears to be the silver lining of a

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Speaker 2: mind in the clouds, which is that if you can

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Speaker 2: find the right topics to mind wander about, if you're

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Speaker 2: mind wandering about things that you find especially interesting and

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Speaker 2: perhaps things that you're particularly curious about, that this may

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Speaker 2: have a very different relationship with well being, and.

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Speaker 1: Getting into this particular state of mind wondering has a

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Speaker 1: host of other benefits too.

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Speaker 2: There have been many cases described for really thousands of

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Speaker 2: years of individuals aimlessly mind wandering and then suddenly having

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Speaker 2: an epiphany.

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Speaker 1: Take the discovery of water displacement. The Greek mathematician Archimedes

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Speaker 1: was asked whether a king's crown was made of pure

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Speaker 1: gold or just gold covered silver, but he wasn't allowed

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Speaker 1: to take the crown apart. The problem puzzled Archimedes. For weeks,

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Speaker 1: he couldn't figure it out until he took a very

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Speaker 1: boring bath. As Archimedes's mind wandered, he thought about the

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Speaker 1: change and the tub's water level as he stepped in,

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Speaker 1: and he came up with a solution.

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Speaker 2: And this legend has it. He shouted eureka, and then

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Speaker 2: climbed out of the bath and ran through the streets,

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Speaker 2: naked in his excitement of his discovery.

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Speaker 1: When the amount of water the crown displaced was compared

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Speaker 1: to that displaced by a piece of gold of matching weight,

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Speaker 1: it was found that, yes, the crown was indeed a

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Speaker 1: cheaper imitation. Boredom has also given us beloved works of fiction.

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Speaker 1: An Oxford professor was grading papers one day something I

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Speaker 1: know can be very tedious. His mind started to wander,

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Speaker 1: and he scribbled a line of prose that launched a

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Speaker 1: now famous fantasy series. The professor, well, he was j R. R. Tolken,

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Speaker 1: and the opening line, in a hole in the ground,

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Speaker 1: there lived a hobbit. Jonathan Schooler has asked more than

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Speaker 1: one hundred writers and physicists to note, whenever they are

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Speaker 1: struck with inspiration.

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Speaker 2: Twenty percent of the ideas that these individuals had happened

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Speaker 2: when they were not at work, nor when they were

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Speaker 2: actively pursuing the problem. They were in the shower, they

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Speaker 2: were writing a check, they were doing chores, and some

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Speaker 2: creative idea would arise.

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Speaker 1: Boredom can feel really, really yucky. But Jonathan began to

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Speaker 1: realize that the purpose of boredom might be to shove

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Speaker 1: our brains into a more creative zone. When neuroscientists get

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Speaker 1: interested in studying how some mental process works, they often

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Speaker 1: stick subjects inside an fMRI brain scanner and measure which

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Speaker 1: parts of the brain are active when they engage in

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Speaker 1: that mental process. If a neuroscientist wants to learn, say,

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Speaker 1: how brains do arithmetic, she might pay her subjects to

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Speaker 1: do a bunch of math problems inside the scanner and

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Speaker 1: measure which parts of the brain fire most when subjects

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Speaker 1: work on these problems. It was during just such a

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Speaker 1: set of studies that researchers made an unexpected discovery about

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Speaker 1: what happens in our brains when subjects take a break

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Speaker 1: and stop doing stuff.

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Speaker 2: And what they discovered is that there was a network

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Speaker 2: of regions that were especially active when people were not

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Speaker 2: given anything to do. They were more active when they

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Speaker 2: were not given anything to do than when they were

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Speaker 2: actually actively working on the task.

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Speaker 1: Neuroscientists called these regions the default mode network, and surprisingly

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Speaker 1: there are some backwater bit of the brain. They're the

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Speaker 1: parts of our gray matter that control the smartest activities.

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Speaker 1: Humans are capable of things like making sense of other people,

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Speaker 1: thinking creatively, and what's known as autobiographical planning.

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Speaker 2: Essentially mental time travel, where you are projecting yourself into

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Speaker 2: the future or into the past.

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Speaker 1: Many neuroscientists were puzzled, but Jonathan knew exactly what was

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Speaker 1: going on. Participants in the fMRI scanners were bored. They

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Speaker 1: had simply let their thoughts roam.

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Speaker 2: We're mind wanting what are we mind wandering about? Well,

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Speaker 2: we're thinking about what we're going to do in the future.

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Speaker 2: We're reflecting on what happened in the past and how

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Speaker 2: we might have done it differently.

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Speaker 1: Jonathan wondered if he could use this default mode network

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Speaker 1: to generate boredom induced epiphanies in the lab, creating the

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Speaker 1: same kind of aha moments that Token and Archimedes had had.

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Speaker 1: So he handed people a brick and told them to

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Speaker 1: come up with as many uses for it as they could.

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Speaker 2: And there are uncreative uses of a brick, such as

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Speaker 2: to build a house, but then there are more creative ones,

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Speaker 2: such as grinding it up and using it as paint.

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Speaker 1: Some people worked on the brick problem continuously, what can

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Speaker 1: I do with this brick? Well, haven't I thought of yet?

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Speaker 1: But other test subjects were interrupted and given a task

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Speaker 1: so boring that Jonathan was pretty sure that they'd start

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Speaker 1: to mind wander. They then resumed figuring out uses for

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Speaker 1: the brick. The ideas this group came up with were

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Speaker 1: judged to be nearly five times more creative than those

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Speaker 1: suggested by the people who weren't given a break to

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Speaker 1: mind wander. The second group didn't say, oh, build a

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Speaker 1: wall with the brick. They thought it could be used

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Speaker 1: as a dumbbell, or even turned into makeup.

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Speaker 2: And this suggests that mind watering may be particularly useful

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Speaker 2: for the kind of problem where you're stumped, the kind

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Speaker 2: of problem where you say I need to sleep on it.

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Speaker 2: You might also say I need to mind wander on it.

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Speaker 1: I've clearly been taking my own mind wandering for granted,

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Speaker 1: I mean thinking back on it. I do get some

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Speaker 1: of my best ideas when I'm stuck on a long

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Speaker 1: train ride when I'm in the shower. But I've been

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Speaker 1: so scared of boredom for decades and decades. Can I

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Speaker 1: really learn to love it?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 1: The happiness lab will be right back.

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Speaker 5: When I go around lecturing about boredom all over the world,

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Speaker 5: I always ask, does there not the audience not know

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Speaker 5: what boredom is? There's always one person that puts to

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Speaker 5: hand proudly in the eds, I'm never bored or only

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Speaker 5: boring people aboard.

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Speaker 1: Psychologist Sandy Man encounters lots of people who are totally

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Speaker 1: unwilling to accept the benefits of boredom.

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Speaker 5: Oh, you've got time to be borederh look at you.

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Speaker 5: You know You're obviously not important enough important people that

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Speaker 5: have time to be bored you know, I think, well,

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Speaker 5: maybe they're missing out.

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Speaker 1: And if you don't want to miss out on the

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Speaker 1: upsides of boredom, Dy's first suggestion is practice, practice, practice.

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Speaker 1: Take twenty minutes each day to get used to the

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Speaker 1: feeling google where you'll be free from distractions, no phones,

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Speaker 1: no email alerts, no one bothering you. Then do something

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Speaker 1: really dull for a few minutes, like doodling or folding laundry.

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Speaker 5: Perhaps don't take music with you, or if you do,

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Speaker 5: take very gentle, boring, not stimulating music. Swimming is really

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Speaker 5: good because you can't take anything in with you to

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Speaker 5: listen to, so you've literally got no stimulation, so your

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Speaker 5: mind can wonder.

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Speaker 1: The next part is easy.

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Speaker 5: You don't really need to concentrate, and you can just

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Speaker 5: let your mind wonder.

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Speaker 1: If you do struggle, neuroscientist Jonathan Schooler suggests trying a

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Speaker 1: meditation practice called open mind monitoring.

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Speaker 2: You essentially are just watching your thoughts without trying to

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Speaker 2: get too attached to them. A thought rises, you witness it,

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Speaker 2: and then you let it pass, and you just take

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Speaker 2: this very open minded, assive stance to watching your mind.

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Speaker 1: There is a slight risk that rather than coming up

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Speaker 1: with a scientific breakthrough or a creative new use for bricks,

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Speaker 1: your mind might settle on thoughts that are upsetting or

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Speaker 1: anxiety provoking. You might worry about money, or work or

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Speaker 1: your health. So it's worth preparing ahead of time, coming

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Speaker 1: up with a list of topics that you know you'll

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Speaker 1: have fun thinking about.

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Speaker 2: And then you can sort of practice shifting to the

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Speaker 2: topics that you find more engaging.

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Speaker 1: But Jonathan says it really is worth the risk. He

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Speaker 1: worries our aversion to boredom is having a detrimental effect

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Speaker 1: on our development as a species.

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Speaker 2: When people have idle moments, they're much less likely to

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Speaker 2: just sit there than they were before because they can

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Speaker 2: pull out their cell phone and start looking at social media.

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Speaker 2: So all these situations such as being in the doctor's

442
00:21:53,596 --> 00:21:56,316
Speaker 2: office are standing in line that previously would have been

443
00:21:56,316 --> 00:22:00,636
Speaker 2: occupied by mind wandering are now being occupied by smartphones.

444
00:22:00,956 --> 00:22:04,196
Speaker 1: Instance, smartphones are the enemy of mind wandering, and mind

445
00:22:04,236 --> 00:22:07,236
Speaker 1: wandering is the friend of discovery. It's possible that we're

446
00:22:07,276 --> 00:22:10,916
Speaker 1: missing out on lots of potential creator and scientific advances.

447
00:22:11,396 --> 00:22:15,436
Speaker 2: There's a classic case of Ponk Calret, the mathematician who

448
00:22:15,716 --> 00:22:20,596
Speaker 2: discovered non Euclidean geometry and was stepping on a bus

449
00:22:21,076 --> 00:22:25,516
Speaker 2: and suddenly the solution to this problem came to mind.

450
00:22:25,676 --> 00:22:29,036
Speaker 2: So if Ponk Caret had been looking at his smartphone

451
00:22:29,036 --> 00:22:30,716
Speaker 2: while he was waiting at the bus stop instead of

452
00:22:30,756 --> 00:22:32,356
Speaker 2: mind water, he might not have come up with a

453
00:22:32,396 --> 00:22:35,876
Speaker 2: solution to Fuchian functions. And I think that's a real concern.

454
00:22:36,076 --> 00:22:37,956
Speaker 1: And if you happen to be mind wandering rather than

455
00:22:37,996 --> 00:22:40,516
Speaker 1: paying attention in math class, let me assure you that

456
00:22:40,556 --> 00:22:43,196
Speaker 1: we're all super lucky that pont Coret took that boring

457
00:22:43,236 --> 00:22:46,716
Speaker 1: bus ride. Now that Jonathan's framed it like this, I'm

458
00:22:46,716 --> 00:22:49,276
Speaker 1: beginning to worry about all the breakthroughs we're never going

459
00:22:49,276 --> 00:22:51,596
Speaker 1: to make as a species unless we get a lot

460
00:22:51,636 --> 00:22:54,836
Speaker 1: more comfortable with being bored. I was thrilled to hear

461
00:22:54,876 --> 00:22:57,836
Speaker 1: all of Sandy and Jonathan's expert advice, but not just

462
00:22:57,876 --> 00:22:59,836
Speaker 1: so I could share it with all of you. I

463
00:22:59,836 --> 00:23:01,276
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to tell my mom.

464
00:23:01,836 --> 00:23:03,716
Speaker 3: I mean, tell me, I really need to listen to

465
00:23:03,756 --> 00:23:06,116
Speaker 3: this podcast right. Just run this with me.

466
00:23:06,716 --> 00:23:09,036
Speaker 1: We bet again over zoom. I've launched into all the

467
00:23:09,156 --> 00:23:11,796
Speaker 1: benefits of boredom. I explained that it was time for

468
00:23:11,796 --> 00:23:14,756
Speaker 1: our family to embrace feeling bored, even if it took

469
00:23:14,756 --> 00:23:17,716
Speaker 1: some work. I think the Santoss are really bad at

470
00:23:17,796 --> 00:23:18,356
Speaker 1: being bored.

471
00:23:18,876 --> 00:23:20,796
Speaker 4: I don't find it as bad for you because you

472
00:23:20,916 --> 00:23:23,876
Speaker 4: are creative and imagine it what.

473
00:23:24,556 --> 00:23:27,436
Speaker 1: From our earlier conversation, I assumed my mom thought that

474
00:23:27,516 --> 00:23:30,116
Speaker 1: my proness to boredom was as bad as hers, But

475
00:23:30,196 --> 00:23:32,676
Speaker 1: as we talked more, my mom explained that I wasn't

476
00:23:32,716 --> 00:23:34,916
Speaker 1: as bored as a kid as I remembered you.

477
00:23:35,036 --> 00:23:37,996
Speaker 4: Had quite an imagination and you were creative, so you

478
00:23:38,036 --> 00:23:39,716
Speaker 4: could pretty much entertain yourself.

479
00:23:40,076 --> 00:23:42,396
Speaker 1: My mom sweetly launched into lots of memories. I had

480
00:23:42,436 --> 00:23:46,516
Speaker 1: forgotten times that I'd successfully translated boredom into all kinds

481
00:23:46,516 --> 00:23:49,596
Speaker 1: of creative pursuits and other antics. My mom was happy

482
00:23:49,636 --> 00:23:50,516
Speaker 1: to remind me about.

483
00:23:50,996 --> 00:23:53,316
Speaker 4: You know, you had the eight milimeter camera, which you

484
00:23:53,956 --> 00:23:58,116
Speaker 4: did spoof TV shows and spoof movies and created haunted

485
00:23:58,156 --> 00:23:59,676
Speaker 4: houses in the solla, you know.

486
00:23:59,756 --> 00:24:03,276
Speaker 3: I mean, you created more stories and games.

487
00:24:02,876 --> 00:24:05,636
Speaker 1: Ones that I readily inflicted on my little brother and

488
00:24:05,676 --> 00:24:06,196
Speaker 1: my friends.

489
00:24:06,476 --> 00:24:08,116
Speaker 3: And I think that's because you were bored.

490
00:24:08,316 --> 00:24:10,276
Speaker 1: So it might have been being bored was why we

491
00:24:10,316 --> 00:24:11,916
Speaker 1: did so much weird stuff as kids.

492
00:24:12,276 --> 00:24:15,996
Speaker 4: I think rather than being bored, you use your creativity,

493
00:24:16,236 --> 00:24:17,756
Speaker 4: you know, like singing the song.

494
00:24:17,596 --> 00:24:20,196
Speaker 3: Boring, bored bard.

495
00:24:21,356 --> 00:24:23,236
Speaker 4: I mean, there are a few people that would have

496
00:24:23,236 --> 00:24:25,716
Speaker 4: thought to do that. Most people would have bitched and

497
00:24:25,836 --> 00:24:27,556
Speaker 4: moaned and done all that other stuff.

498
00:24:28,916 --> 00:24:34,196
Speaker 1: You just said the board and bored and bor. It

499
00:24:34,276 --> 00:24:36,516
Speaker 1: was really nice to remember that there was a time

500
00:24:36,556 --> 00:24:41,516
Speaker 1: that I appreciated boring moments board and bored and bor,

501
00:24:42,796 --> 00:24:45,556
Speaker 1: recognizing the creative value that kid Laurie got out of

502
00:24:45,556 --> 00:24:48,276
Speaker 1: boredom has made me even more committed to embracing that

503
00:24:48,396 --> 00:24:51,636
Speaker 1: uncomfortable feeling. Now, we all need to start treating boring

504
00:24:51,676 --> 00:24:54,476
Speaker 1: activities as a luxury, as a time to let our

505
00:24:54,516 --> 00:24:57,356
Speaker 1: minds kick into their creative default mode so we can

506
00:24:57,396 --> 00:24:59,916
Speaker 1: come up with our next big idea. And that's why

507
00:24:59,956 --> 00:25:02,956
Speaker 1: adult Laurie is ready to embark on a hardcore boredom

508
00:25:02,996 --> 00:25:05,716
Speaker 1: training regimen. I'm going to start by picking out some

509
00:25:05,796 --> 00:25:08,596
Speaker 1: fun topics to think about, like themes for my next

510
00:25:08,596 --> 00:25:13,596
Speaker 1: Halloween or ideas for new podcast episodes. I'll also drop

511
00:25:13,596 --> 00:25:16,436
Speaker 1: my usual music playlist when I'm out on my daily walks,

512
00:25:16,916 --> 00:25:18,596
Speaker 1: just to make sure my mind has the space it

513
00:25:18,676 --> 00:25:21,716
Speaker 1: needs to wander a bit. I hope you'll consider joining

514
00:25:21,796 --> 00:25:24,036
Speaker 1: me in my quest to embrace a bit more boredom,

515
00:25:24,276 --> 00:25:26,516
Speaker 1: and I also hope that your return for the next

516
00:25:26,516 --> 00:25:30,276
Speaker 1: episode in this special series exploring my personal challenges on

517
00:25:30,556 --> 00:25:33,796
Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab with me, Doctor Laurie Santos