Speaker 1: Welcome to brainsty a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbam here ever felt bored to tears? Maybe it
Speaker 1: was yesterday flipping through a thousand streaming options and not
Speaker 1: liking any of them. Or maybe it's just the daily
Speaker 1: grind of work, dinner, and chores that never seems to change.
Speaker 1: Boredom is sort of an emotional oxymoron. Your mind itches
Speaker 1: for something to do, but your body doesn't respond. What
Speaker 1: happens when that flatlined feeling doesn't go away? Could you
Speaker 1: really die of boredom? We sometimes call chronic boredom on Wei,
Speaker 1: characterized by listlessness, discontent, and sadness, a kind of mental weariness.
Speaker 1: On Wei is a French word that English speakers adopted
Speaker 1: around the sixteen to seventeen hundreds, with roots in the
Speaker 1: same words that gave us terms like annoying and odious,
Speaker 1: which boredom certainly is. References to the idea of boredom
Speaker 1: stretch back to the ancient philosophers, but the word boredom
Speaker 1: didn't appear until these seventeen to eighteen hundreds, after which
Speaker 1: literature exploded with musings on it. Tolstoy called boredom the
Speaker 1: desire for desires, Boredom and on we are difficult to study.
Speaker 1: They're distinct from depression. Although they are associated, they can
Speaker 1: be difficult to pin down. It's not like there's a
Speaker 1: blood test for these emotional states, and they seem to
Speaker 1: arise from a combination of both external and internal stimuli.
Speaker 1: For the article of this episode is based on How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Spoke via email with Aaron C. Westgate, PhD,
Speaker 1: an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Florida.
Speaker 1: She said, boredom, like all emotions, does not have a
Speaker 1: one to one mapping with symptoms or expressions. Or rather,
Speaker 1: we can feel bored in different ways at different times,
Speaker 1: just like we can feel anger and other emotions in
Speaker 1: a variety of ways, from quiet frustration at a late
Speaker 1: colleague to rage at a person who is harmed a
Speaker 1: loved one. Empirical evidence suggests that boredom, for instance, is
Speaker 1: sometimes associated with heightened physiological arousal like a fast heart rate,
Speaker 1: and sometimes with low arousal like a slow heart rate,
Speaker 1: lower blood pressure, et cetera. Thus, there's likely no one
Speaker 1: way that on weave or chronic boredom feels run of
Speaker 1: the mill. Boredom alone won't kill you, but in a
Speaker 1: roundabout way, it can pose problems. Some personalities that gravitate
Speaker 1: toward high risk lifestyles also experience chronic boredom. How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works also spoke via email with Emily Edlin, PhD, a
Speaker 1: clinical psychologist and practicing therapist. She said, neurological studies suggest
Speaker 1: that some people, like thrill seekers, need more stimulation to
Speaker 1: release the brain's pleasure and reward chemicals. For some reason,
Speaker 1: men are more likely to fall in this category. When
Speaker 1: we experience joy and excitement in a new situation, a
Speaker 1: chemical messenger or neurotransmitter called dopamine triggers that response in
Speaker 1: our brains. It appears that high risk, boredom prone people
Speaker 1: may have naturally lower levels of dopamine, meaning that they
Speaker 1: require a heightened sense of novelty to stimulate their brains.
Speaker 1: ONWI is more likely to be experienced by people with
Speaker 1: mental disorders, and perhaps especially attention disorders like ADHD. People
Speaker 1: with brain injuries to their frontal cortex experience more boredom
Speaker 1: and greater risk taking urges too. Interestingly, the frontal cortex
Speaker 1: also controls our perception of time, which could be linked
Speaker 1: to the sensation of time passing more slowly when we're bored.
Speaker 1: It also seems that people with low self awareness about
Speaker 1: their emotions are more prone to ANWI, Edlin said. The
Speaker 1: theory is that they do not have awareness about what
Speaker 1: provides them satisfaction. While science doesn't completely understand the relationship
Speaker 1: between boredom and risk taking, it can spiral into danger.
Speaker 1: A study about boredom published in twenty ten in the
Speaker 1: International Journal of Epidemiology concluded those with a great deal
Speaker 1: of boredom were more likely to die during follow up
Speaker 1: than those not bored at all. In particular, they were
Speaker 1: more likely to die from a cardiovascular disease fatal event. However,
Speaker 1: the state of boredom is almost certainly a proxy for
Speaker 1: other risk factors. In other words, the people in the
Speaker 1: study weren't dying of literal boredom, but boredom led them
Speaker 1: to unhealthy behaviors like excessive drinking, smoking, and use of
Speaker 1: other drugs. In cases like these, boredem simultaneously serves as
Speaker 1: a symptom and a stimulant for adverse behavior. People may
Speaker 1: not have the coping mechanisms and ability to put circumstances
Speaker 1: in perspective to overcome borda leading to continuous dissatisfaction. Issues
Speaker 1: around gambling are also associated, so how can we combat
Speaker 1: this elusive pest. A study found the people who reported
Speaker 1: feelings of boredom frequently tried to alleviate it with brief distractions,
Speaker 1: including work breaks or doing laundry, but these boredom band
Speaker 1: aids soon failed. On the other hand, people who engaged
Speaker 1: with other people or practiced findfulness were more successful. It's
Speaker 1: not easy to change our reactions to things, but you
Speaker 1: can try to revamp your thoughts about tasks that cause boredom.
Speaker 1: For example, if you're a student working on math problems
Speaker 1: that you find boring, you can remind yourself that these
Speaker 1: exercises are part of reaching your future goals. Mild boredom
Speaker 1: can be thought of as a normal part of the
Speaker 1: human experience, a contrast that sets off the fun and
Speaker 1: beautiful moments. You can thus try to reframe boredom as
Speaker 1: okay and not something to immediately get rid of. Edlin said,
Speaker 1: the more often we allow ourselves to feel boredom not
Speaker 1: automatically picking up our phones, the more opportunities we have
Speaker 1: to tolerate it and use it to channel innovative and
Speaker 1: creative thinking. In fact, children who figure out how to tolerate
Speaker 1: boredom through their own creativity and not by depending on others,
Speaker 1: are more likely to manage it better as adults. All
Speaker 1: that said, while you're working on mindfulness, shifting gears and
Speaker 1: starting in on some other activity can help in the
Speaker 1: short run. A Westgate said, people can do something else
Speaker 1: entirely in hopes that the new activity will be a
Speaker 1: better attentional fit that is not too hard, not too easy,
Speaker 1: and more meaningful than their current task. When searching for
Speaker 1: an activity, psychologists recommend finding an optimal amount of ease
Speaker 1: and challenge called flow. In essence, flow means getting into
Speaker 1: a groove like our runner's high or hitting a tennis
Speaker 1: ball back and forth. It demands more skill and agility
Speaker 1: than tedious tasks, but at a low enough intensity that
Speaker 1: you reap the mental reward of accomplishment in the longer run.
Speaker 1: Engaging with healthy interests or hobbies, picking up new ones,
Speaker 1: and getting in more physical exercise have all been shown
Speaker 1: to reduce boredom for someone in the middle of own wei.
Speaker 1: This kind of advice is at least as annoying as
Speaker 1: boredom itself, but it's definitely worth a try to get
Speaker 1: yourself feeling engaged with the world again. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the articles can You Die of Boredom? Written
Speaker 1: by Kristin Konger and Embracing on wi How Boredom Can
Speaker 1: Be Good for You written by Leah Hoyt on HowStuffWorks
Speaker 1: dot com. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in
Speaker 1: partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
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