Should We Get Bored?

The Greatness Together Podcast

In this episode of The Greatness Together podcast, we build on the last episode, which focused on busyness and how to avoid its unhealthy and stressful aspects. This organically led to a question of what benefits boredom might play. Could it help combat busyness? Is being bored a good thing?

Quote: “During times of boredom, it’s more valuable just to be bored because your brain will process things that it hasn’t had time to think about and come up with new ideas.” Simonne McVanel

Greatness Together Podcast Highlights:

• Should we get bored? 0:00
• Goals of boredom. 1:00
• There’s an upside and a downside. 2:00
• Healthy boredom. 6:00
• Downtime is necessary. 9:30
• Busy relaxation. 11:30
• The complexities of boredom. 15:00
• Counterbalance. 18:30
• Next episode: What is Role Conflict? 20:40

When we are constantly stimulated by technology, music, entertainment sources, conversations, tasks, and more, we don’t give our brain the space to reflect or process; when we have found pockets of time to be bored, we have found that our creative ideas, sleep, and clarity of decisions have resulted. Maybe there’s a benefit of being bored. So why does it have a bad rap?

Some research that took place during the pandemic points to the fact that there is a difference between undirected boredom, a lack of meaningful directional activity, and having space to create. One has negative mental health implications; the other is beneficial.

If you struggle with giving yourself permission not always to be producing, you are frustrated that your life is too full, or you are simply curious about the value of being bored occasionally, you’ll love this episode.

Links:

Is it Better to be Introverted or Extroverted? Greatness MagnifiedSubscribe to The Greatness Together Podcast

(1) Creativity, Boredom Proneness and Well-Being in the Pandemic from MDPI, Behavioural Sciences Journal