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Sit and do nothing? Surely, if someone proposes this to you, you will automatically think about your long list of pending tasks or better things to do.
The feeling that the day does not have enough hours to be able to deal with all the emails, pending work tasks or taking care of the family, is something common.
In addition to this, when we are not doing these tasks, we immediately connect our mobile devices to read something online or respond to a comment on a social network in a continuous search for entertainment.
Few people think of boredom as a valid option.
According to neuroscientists, boredom has a bad name but it can actually boost creativity, task commitment, and work productivity.
There are people who even prefer to give themselves a slight electric shock to be alone with their thoughts, as a famous experiment published in the magazine Science.
In the experiment, a group of people were asked to sit quietly for 15 minutes in a room with nothing else to do.
As an alternative they only had the option of pressing a button and giving themselves an electric shock.
Although receiving a physical shock is unpleasant, many people, especially men, preferred it to being deprived of external sensory stimuli.
Of the 42 participants, almost half chose to press the button at least once, despite having experienced the shock before.
However, one even chose to be electrocuted 190 times. “Most people seem to prefer doing something to doing nothing, even if that something is negative,” they wrote in the study.
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The brain has two main circuits or modes of operation: an executive one to achieve objectives and another circuit called the default mode network, which is activated when we are not doing something specific.
Always active
Your brain works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even when you are asleep, the brain is never asleep. Listen, detect and manage stressors to keep you safe and sound.
You are looking for solutions, making decisions and thinking of possibilities even when you are not aware of it.
This “always on” organ is so devoted that it never takes a break or vacation. But neuroscientists also say it has its limits..
Sleeping is one of the brain’s ways of cleaning up after a full day, even though it’s still working. But also boredom is important for your health.
It is something that they are clear about in Italy, where the phrase Il sweet doing nothing(“the sweetness of doing nothing”) is part of the culture of a country where relaxation, the pleasure of doing nothing, is part of life.
It is not about taking a nap, it is something deeper. It is about putting aside the daily rhythm of the day and dedicating a moment to introspection, relaxation and awareness of living in the moment.
Neuroscientist Alicia Walf, a researcher in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the United States, says that letting yourself get bored from time to time is essential for brain health.
“Get bored improves social connections. Social neuroscientists have discovered that the brain has a default mode network that kicks in when we stop doing things. In fact, boredom can foster creative ideas, replenishing dwindling reserves and providing an incubation period for embryonic work ideas to be born,” he explains in a statement to the publication. Forbes.
“In those moments that can seem dull, empty and unnecessary, the strategies and solutions that have been there all along in embryonic form come to life. And the brain gets a much-needed rest when we don’t overwork it. Some famous writers have claimed that their most creative ideas come to them when they are moving furniture, showering or pulling weeds.These moments of inspiration are called insight“he adds.
In a study published in the journal Academy of Management Discoveries In 2019, researchers bored a group of people by giving them instructions to sort beans by color. Meanwhile, another group was entrusted with a much more interesting task.
They were then asked to come up with good excuses for being late. The bored group outperformed their peers in both number and creativity of ideas, as judged by a targeted outside group.
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Boredom allows us to recharge the batteries in our head and, although it is an uncomfortable feeling, it is a necessary exercise.
For her part, British psychologist Sandi Mann argues in “The art of knowing how to get bored” that boredom “can be a powerful, motivating force, instilling creativity, intelligent thought, and reflection.”
“We are bored because we have a lot of stimuli, so we need more and more stimuli to avoid boredom. It’s a vicious circle,” he warns.
In the opinion of Mann, who has spent 20 years investigating boredom, it is an image problem. Understanding what exactly boredom is can help you view it in a more positive light..
“It’s an emotion and it’s basically a search for brain stimulation that doesn’t come to pass. If you’re looking for something that appeals to you and you don’t get it, that frustration is called boredom,” he explains to the BBC.
“The nice thing about embracing boredom is that you don’t really have to do much,” she says while encouraging parents to let their kids get bored. “Let them learn to deal with boredom and ‘get bored’ and you’ll unleash a world of creativity.”
Boredom is good for our children, says the American Child Mind Institute in the same vein.
“Learning to deal with boredom helps kids learn flexibility, planning skills, and problem solving,” she says.
improve attention
Just like sleep is an important and productive time for the brain, it turns out that downtime is vital to our minds and well-being.
“Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence, or a vice. It is as essential for the brain as vitamin D it is to the body and, deprived of it, we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets,” writes Tim Kreider in his essay on The New York Times “The Hustle Trap”.
the american magazine Scientific American spends a long article summarizing the benefits of downtime.
“Downtime replenishes the brain’s reserves of attention and motivation, fosters productivity and creativity, and is essential for reaching our highest levels of performance and simply forming stable memories in everyday life,” he writes.
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The art of boredom is named after the Dutch word “niksen” which means “to do nothing”.
We can think of downtime, boredom or idleness as a mental cleansing: a way to free our mind from the cognitive congestion that accumulates over time.
So maybe it’s not so much that we need to be bored as that we need empty time, or less full.
As an article in the specialized publication Psychology Todayan excess of information can reduce attention span.
“So taking a break can be a valuable opportunity to help our overworked brains relax and relieve stress. It’s beneficial to get away from social media and other stressors long enough to feel bored“, writes Shahram Heshmat, professor at the University of Illinois in the United States.
According to the expert, “boredom can improve our mental health. In this information age, our brains are overloaded with data and distractions. The abundance of information translates into a shortage of attention“.
“Attention uses a person’s limited cognitive resources for productive activities.”
It is good for mental health
Daydreaming can be “all a breather” and provide a brief escape from everyday life, Mann says in his book.
Numerous studies have shown, for example, that modern tools like work email, social media and dating apps can put mental health to the test, so taking a break can be a valuable opportunity to recharge. the batteries.
That is why many experts, such as Mann, conceive boredom as a protective reaction that allows us to disconnect from the information and noise that constantly harasses us.
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Our brain needs a break from the constant stream of stimuli and distractions that characterizes our noisy and busy world.
“As adults, we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with so much information that we wouldn’t be able to cope without ‘habituating’ to much of it.”
“So we get used to the radio, spam, cereal box messages, etc., all in order to free our minds and not have to think about it. Getting bored with things allows us to free up the brain to focus on those aspects of life that require more careful consideration. Hooray, then, for boredom!” he says.
It is important, therefore, to cultivate boredom, that pleasure of doing nothing and knowing how to appreciate it.
“Given these benefits, we should embrace boredom rather than seek an immediate exit. We should also allow our minds to wander, because boredom can be an opportunity to reflect on what we want in life“, aggregate por su parte Shahram Heshmat.
You know, nothing better to put into practice Il dolce far niente.
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