tba
If you're bored, you created that through your "thinking" and an evaluation of what "non-action" means in terms of non-survival. And it is you who gets to create something else. Do not dither for a moment in boredom, for it is laxity embodied, being in a state of mostly nothingness. Shift your attention to that which arouses, excites, fulfills, and is creative. It is your choice.
The BuddhaKahuna
In evolutionary terms, those who had nothing to do, in a sense, were in a state of non-activity that was threatening to survival. Pursuing survival and feeling one will do it well feels good, but doing the opposite is something our evolutionary imperative will not tolerate - and thus we get a message "Correct me!!! Fix me! Do something! I want you to feel bad enough to get your rear in gear... for survival!"
DEFINITIONS
To bore: To make weary by being dull, repetitive, or tedious
Boredom:
Wikipedia: Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is without any work or is not interested in their surroundings.
You create the mood of boredom by considering something dull, repetitive or tedious, adding that meaning to it to make it "bad" or something to be unhappy about.
All it is is “an unpleasant, transient affective [emotional] state in which the
individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity", "an affective experience associated with cognitive attentional processes.” In positive psychology, boredom is described as a response to a moderate challenge for which the subject has more than enough skill.
Existential boredom, if it really exists, is explained as a sense of emptiness, of isolation, perhaps of alienation, maybe with a little mix of disgust. It gets very jumbled up with ennui and melancholy. The person lacks interest in things, has difficulty concentrating—that pretty much covers it.
Simple boredom is an emotion of mild disgust, produced by temporarily unavoidable and predictable circumstances. Predictability, monotony, confinement are all key. From a sociological point of view, the people most susceptible to it are those who are trapped in a situation and can’t get out, such as young children at school and older people in retirement homes. Prisoners, obviously, and even people who are trapped in jobs that are highly repetitive and unrewarding.
The solution is to shift your attention to something that is at a higher level of arousal and interest.
There is a test for proness: Boredom Proneness Scale. ][Click here to take it.] Consistent with the definition provided above, recent research has found that boredom proneness is clearly and consistently associated with failures of attention. Boredom and boredom proneness are both theoretically and empirically linked to depression and depressive symptoms
It is a state of understimulation (too low of an arousal state) and it need not be uncomfortable or made into a big deal. It can be just considered a "so what", "this is what is going on right now, as I need to do this. I'll just do my best to keep myself alert and breathing deeply, with upright posture, and everything will be fine."
THE SPECTRUM: BOREDOM ALL THE WAY TO EXCITATION
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Boredom Excitement Extreme
Interest excitement
agitation
Once a person is "cognitive" about what boredom is and that it is an optional state, one can choose to remedy it. And the person can choose to remedy it even if the circumstances that seem to be the cause of it are not altered, as might be the case when we can't get out of something and must "endure" it, so to speak.
Indeed, boredom can be a form of learned helplessness, where we simply let the situation be the determinant of how we feel, instead of something we have dominion over. We are the filters through which boredom is created. You might notice that other people are not necessarily bored in the same situations.
Anyway, the bottom line is that boredom is not something you need to be a victim of, especially since you are the one who created it!
We "make up" that boredom is too uncomfortable, "I don't think I can stand it" - which of course makes the mood overall feel really bad. If we don't add any "it's awful" meaning to boredom, then it ain't so bad - it's just a lull, with nothing going on, which we could relax into - or simply choose to create something else.
Earlier this year, the academic psychologist Richard Ralley came up with the un-boring idea that boredom is good for you. He argued that boredom is an emotion and as such must have an evolutionary function, such as conserving energy in the brain or reminding us of the need to interact with others.
Statesman
Bored. Nothing compelling. Looking for something to get me stimulated. Passive. Avoidant. Lost. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nothing I have to do.
Not good.
Boredom <-- Motivation, inspiration
- opposite of challenge, determination, clarity, curiosity
If a boring activity, add another stimulus, such as, perhaps, tv (god forbid!).
ACTIONS IN RESPONSE, TO ELIMINATE BOREDOM
Remember boredom is a mood, a chemical state, not a real thing but an interpretation, so... Since it is a state of "underarousal" and one that we "judge" as being something "bad" or "undesirable", we need to apply the rule of doing the opposite of whatever it is that is not feeling good!
Do boring things really fast, in super speed motion, perhaps to the music of The Saber Dance.
Alter your body posture and breathing: Sit up straight, very straight. breathe slowly and deeply.
Exercise, move your body.
Or use it as a meditation time, a time of piece, where one is pacing oneself, breathing slowly, in a state of low stress.
Nap, take a bath.
Call someone.
Watch something inspiring.
Go for a walk.
A good hobby.
Since boredom is a low intensity, low arousal state, you have to do things higher up the scale.
Keep a bucket list and look at and decide to dream or think about it, or do a plan.
A difficult video game. board games, crossword puzzle
Listen to inspiring and/or beneficial audios
Watch a movie or TV at the same time.
Powerful, long range goals, keep them in front of you.
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Just notes, for a complete write up:
So we do more things that good for our survival. To get us out of being idle, so we'd survive better. encouraging a change, not something to keep around and be the victim of.
The nature of boredom, why "uncomfortable?, survival?
definitions: boredom arises not for a lack of things to do but the inability to latch onto any specific activity. Nothing engages us, despite an often profound desire for engagement. boredom arises not for a lack of things to do but the inability to latch onto any specific activity. Nothing engages us, despite an often profound desire for engagement.
Without stimulus or focus, the individual is confronted with nothingness, the meaninglessness of existence, and experiences existential anxiety. Heidegger states this idea nicely: "Profound boredom, drifting here and there in the abysses of our existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and men and oneself along with it into a remarkable indifference. This boredom reveals being as a whole."[13]
Boredom is a state of anxiety and low self-respect. We’re educated to get satisfaction from a very limited set of activities. Watching movies, eating, reading, programming (I know my blog is read by some fine geeks too, this one’s for you, guys ), talking with friends, daydreaming. We’re in a state of comfort and balance every time we’re doing something we like. But the moment we’re not doing it anymore, something very subtle, yet extremely powerful happens. How And Why We Get Bored, Dragosroua.com
Boredom is an expression of our sense of emptiness and limitation.
If there is any significant cure for boredom,it is diversification. Variety is the spice of life, they say.One must diversify one's interests and involvements into areas beyond one's routine duties.Finding a new enterprise, a work one has has never done before, gives a man a new challenge,and naturally boredom takes a backseat and gradually fades out.You can take part ina game you have never participated before. You can engage yourself in fishing, hiking, para-gliding, camping, trekking, surfing, rock-climbing,and other forms of adventurous outdoor sports that whisk a man away from the the daily drudgery of mundane existence. Besides, you can take part in meaningful social activities like helping out physically-and-mentally challenged children, you can work with children and elderly people who are terminally ill , like Cancer patients and AIDS victims. You can also ,if you like. work for the prisoners, and venture into championing social and environmental causes which will give you utmost pleasure and satisfaction
Thus, if you want a cure for boredom and looking forward to banishing it, make a list of the things you have always wanted to do but never done before.Then pick up the first one and go flat out. with it. The key to destroying boredom is to participate in pleasurable activities, engaging oneself in challenging tasks beyond one's routine tasks. If you are an individual who is always willing take risks, one who gets involved in all kinds of activities around him
Boredom is the enemy, not some abstract ‘failure.’”
Tim Ferriss, The 4 Hour Workweek
read a great, involving book
One is the grander, fluffier notion that it enables a person to look more precisely at the self. When you’re bored, you’re apart from the world in a sense, you’re driven back into yourself and get a stronger sense of yourself as a separate individual. So boredom can intensify self-perception. Of course it’s a good thing to be able to escape boredom, but no emotion should be treated as trivial. It’s through emotions that we come to know the world and come to know ourselves. Second, boredom can encourage contemplation and daydreaming, which sometimes drive creativity and questioning. The other use, the one I’m getting at above all, is that perhaps boredom acts, much like disgust, as an adaptive emotion. If a plate of food looks and smells disgusting, that sense of disgust can help a person prosper, by guiding him to avoid the food. Interesting discussion from the author of Boredom, A Lively History, by Peter Toohey, Macleans.ca, digital magazine of the year
I'm not talking about being bored for a few hours while waiting in line at Disneyland or in the waiting room of a doctor's office. I'm talking about finding life itself not only uninteresting but also purposeless. I'm talking about what I call existential boredom
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Boredom, opposite of interest - need for stimulation, dopamine or adrenaline.
short term: study as boring, painful, but is it? Or is it the conversation about it? The activity is muted so it could "feel" boring, feel "unstimulating"
We play computer games trying to do the opposite of boredom (the opposite of "non-stimulation".
So, why is study boring. How could so and so have a study time from 7 pm to 10 pm and keep it going without being bored, while Iwas off playing poker, bridge, hearts...
The curiosity drive seeks as its goal changes of stimulation in the same way that the hunger drive seeks food. If the curiosity drive is not met adequately, boredom is the result.
The human brain weighs 3 pounds and uses 20 percent of the body's oxygen and glucose. It has the same survival mandate as the fox to limit energy and effort when low yield of success is predicted based on past experiences.
If one's conversation is that x is uninteresting, no wonder...
If there appears to be no reward, no wonder...
Or no value talked about, it goes away becomes vague..
I’ve found that the more I focus on my boredom or irritation, the more I amplify that feeling.
Boredom is in the eye of the beholder. It could be an attitude, or dopamine receptors being out of whack. a kind of anhedonia.
In adulthood, boredom can signal a lack of meaning in your life.
says we’re perceiving the current situation as devoid of meaning. Many psychologists would argue that addressing boredom is a skill we can learn.
According to a 2010 study published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences, state boredom has many components including an unpleasant feeling; thinking changes (lack of interest, decreased concentration, time seems to slow down); body changes (tiredness takes over); facial changes (you look bored and your body language tends to slouch); and behavioural changes (you become motivated to change the activity, or leave the situation that is boring you).
However, if you’re often prone to boredom you might agree with statements like: “It takes a lot of change and variety to keep me really happy” and “It takes more stimulation to get me going than most people”.
The range of touted “boredom busters” is extremely broad. Interviewed about their boredom experience, most individuals report engaging in one or more of the following partial list of activities to help keep boredom at bay: turn on the TV or radio, “party,” go for a drive, smoke a cigarette, drink an alcoholic beverage, eat or over-eat, go on a diet, read, write, “stay busy,” work, smoke marijuana, drink coffee, have sex, sleep, go without sleep, gamble, play a video game, play cards, take a vacation, travel, sign up for a tour of an exotic locale, go shopping, shoplift, surf the internet, go bungee jumping, sky-dive, watch/play competitive sports, go to a movie, hike a trail, climb a mountain, join the military to see the world, get a job, phone a friend for conversation, change one’s hairdo or hairstyle, dye one’s hair, get a crush on a political candidate, run for political office, fantasize, participate in a political rally, seek out new challenges, create a new business, hang out at the local bar, use the remote control to change the TV channel, think, drive an automobile, drive one’s car fast or faster than usual, turn on the NASCAR channel on TV, terminate a relationship, divorce one’s spouse, get a pet, leave a job, work on a crossword puzzle, engage in creative activity, engage in risky/challenging endeavors, do volunteer work, seek out/perform in a live arts or other performance, and so on.
stimulation/activity is very quickly habituated to/attentionally automatized, our boredom experience, associated behavioral restlessness, and need for more stimulation quickly returning, propelling us
