Ever Hate Feeling Bored?

This is How I found the most overlooked Treasure

Want to unlock the treasure for yourself? Don’t Panic! This article will give you valuable insights and you will not be the same after reading it.

© Author

As most of you, who had read yesterday’s story already knew that I had an unplanned off today while all my friends were busy finishing their tasks. I have got the option to do some activities, but one of my friend suggested enjoy the weekend without phone or internet. I tried to do so, though I was not 100% away from the phone so I had chosen one of my oldest routine which I used to follow for more than a decade till six years ago. You might surprise to know about it, but this is really worth trying. You can try it in anything like in your work, in your exercise or in your studies and that is fixing your time for being bored.

So after being bored, I thought of writing today’s article on being bored and trying to share some insightful items with you all.

The Science of Boredom

Being a science student, I can’t understand things beyond logics. Neuroscientists believe that boredom helps to develop our brain when we feel bored our brain jumps into “default mode” and start introspection, day dreaming and form new connections.

Even you do self retrospections for your mistakes when you put some idle time with yourself. People says most creative ideas comes when you are feeling bored, though I could not find any evidence for this statement yet.

Mindset Shift Required

In present era of hyper connected world, we see boredom as a negative trait or as a direct enemy to own personality. We have developed a bad habit of filling every void with mindless scrolling on our phone, playing video games or seeking another stimuli as soon as we get a smallest void. But wait boredom can help us and benefit us in many ways (based on studies) —

Enhance Creativity

Unstructured breaks without worrying what to do next helps us to let our mind wander in any direction that leads to creative solutions to the problems in hand or enhancements to the problems already solved.

Improve Focus

After a decent amount of boredom, you will start loving the old work and often want to start it again; which can not possible otherwise. Or sometimes find a new way to do it.

Boost self awareness

As already discussed above boredom helps us to think, to reflect on our values, desires, mistakes and goals, leading to a better understanding of ourselves.

How to Embrace the Advantages of Boredom?

Now you have got the benefits of boredom and understood that it is not your enemy, you must be thinking, how can you leverage its power? Don’t worry Anks has covered you my chaps —

Schedule Boredom Breaks

You should deliberately schedule small daily time and little large weekly time to do nothing. Do anything like walk in nature, sit in park or go on a manual bike ride; but make sure not to fulfil your urge to play with phone. This will not only help you to get the benefits of boredom but also allow you to prevent from the domino effects of unplanned tasks.

Let Your Mind Wander

You can hate me for telling this but look inside and tell the truth, when was the last time you have allowed your mind to wander freely. Don’t say while driving; I know, you were busy listening to the music or on a call all the time you are in car; while commute either you chat on phone or play or do anything else. Don’t do it anymore, just observe your thought without judging them, allow them to flow freely. You might be surprised by the insights that emerge.

Enjoy Free Play

When was the last time you have enjoyed the things you could have loved as a kid. Ideally you should set a periodic time for it, I am giving you some examples which you can use like doodling, sketching, colouring or making anything that don’t have a goal or endpoint.

By now I have written a lot about enhancing creativity by being bored but this is not only about creativity. You can expect another benefit beyond creativity like —

Develop Resilience

By learning how to tolerate the boredom, you will become less dependent on external stimuli for happiness. This develops the capacity to cope up with challenges and setbacks.

Connect With Self

Boredom allows us to connect with our inner self, these quite moments allows us to listen and understand our inner voice and explore our deeper thoughts and feelings.

Wrapping Up!

Boredom helps us to cherish the real values of rest and relaxation where the whole world is trying to cherish their busyness. I believe that taking these breaks helps our mind to take rests. When you get any downtime next time, embrace it and allow your mind to wander to unlock the world of creativity, self-discovery and resilience. So next time, when you find yourself feeling bored, don’t reach your phone. Thank to God for giving you the opportunity to do nothing and let your brain explore inside and create something out of the world.

I really re-lived that childhood time again today.

Thank you for reading this far.

Thank you for showing your love and support on Yesterday’s story, Story #224

[embed]Thursday? Friday? Whoops! My Accidental Power Productivity Day How a confused calendar mishap became a masterclass to coach focus, efficiency and the power of helpfulness.medium.com

If you find this story valuable and want to support me? make sure to

• Share it to someone to bring me in Recommendations.
• 👏 clap for the article (did you know you can claps upto 50 times) to help this article to be featured.
• Follow me on medium and read more content to level up.

Otherwise

• Drop your doubts or points in comments, let’s discuss.