Boring cycle - What to do when you're bored?

Understanding Boredom.

Have you ever come home after work, went to the kitchen, and opened the fridge only to find it's empty? You then return to mindlessly scrolling on your phone, and half an hour later, you find yourself back in the kitchen, opening the fridge door again. Which part of your brain didn't register that there's nothing interesting in there, first time around? Perhaps your mind was seeking something engaging, not food. Eventually, you'll do something to break this monotonous cycle. You might think it's abnormal to feel this way—lacking energy and feeling bored for an extended period. However, this is perfectly normal and physiological. It's as if your life is just a cycle of recurring boredom followed by quests.

A pattern: Unsplash

Boring cycle

To find an answer to the question of what to do when you're bored, it's important to understand the cycle of boredom first. When the brain experiences low levels of stimulation, the mind begins to wander and becomes unfocused, leading to feelings of boredom. This wandering thinking mode takes you through tasks, memories, and images from the past, essentially taking a random walk through your memory bank. Once it discovers something rewarding, the mind sets out to recreate that experience. As you can see, this is a very basic and mundane pattern. You get out of bed and move like a zombie through the dining room to open the fridge. You either find something or nothing. Depending on what it encounters, the mind either feels temporarily delighted or temporarily experiences failure and sadness. This feeling will influence your emotions for the next few minutes. Over time, the mind gradually adapts to this sensation and forgets it, and guess what? It becomes bored again, starting a new quest.

Sensory deprivation -> Boredom-> quest -> suffering to get it-> happy or sad-> adapt -> Sensory deprivation ->bored again

So, what are you going to do when you are bored?

As you can see, a boring cycle is almost automatic. You do not have a choice about what comes to your mind. Generally, a default thought that you had previously considered would trigger your next quest and stop the boredom. Yet, something interesting happens when your mind is out of options. Imagine instead you go outside your home and sit on a bench in a park. Here, the environment is different. Yet, your mind is looking for a fridge to open when it is bored on the bench. As there is no fridge, it gives up on this and is now left with nothing but to think about other things banked deep inside your brain, or in front of your eyes, making new connections, generating new ideas, and hypothesizing. And once it finds something very interesting, it will rise up from the bench. Without you even knowing it, you will be rushing out of the park to do the next task, as now the brain has picked up something to seek.

Motivation is just aftermath of boredom.

A lack of motivation or creativity during your day isn't an issue with your mind. It's a consequence of cutting off boredom too soon, before it can inspire more fulfilling thoughts. If you sit in a chair for half an hour, doing nothing but jotting down your thoughts with a pen and paper—without scrolling or repeatedly checking the fridge—your mind will naturally discover something rewarding to do. The paper in your hand would prove this. I suggest making this your next big experiment. Observe how creative and brilliant your mind becomes when it's truly bored.