This week I often found myself bored as I oddly did not have any school work that I could be doing this week. It was nice and refreshing, yet at the same time, a tad bit annoying that I had absolutely nothing to do. Once I ran through my normal after school activities and after reading my book, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I tried to fill my time with random activities, but it did not do much. I still felt bored.
I was curious as to why no matter what I did, I still felt bored, so I decided to do a bit of research, to hopefully get rid of some of the boredom I was experiencing. In my search, I found this article, in which it tries to explain the science behind boredom. Mostly what I found was that the reason that we become bored is that we love to experience and learn new things. Our bodies respond positively to new experiences, rewarding us with a surge of dopamine that makes us feel good. In this sense, boredom essentially becomes a motivation for us to go out and try new things.
To test this theory out, I decided to try out something new. I found an old 1,000 piece puzzle in the basement that I figured would be good to try out. It kept me occupied for a good while, quelling my boredom whenever I had nothing to do. It was a nice and relaxing time, more than I expected to be honest. Even though I was able to fix my boredom with puzzles, I’m not sure how much longer it will last as I often get bored of new things after a while. That being said, does anyone have any activities that they like to do when bored?
That's really interesting that boredom has such a big effect on our brains and chemicals. Personally I enjoy learning new things such as piano or a different language so that I'm doing something that will keep me interested for a long time and so that it will be different every time so that I won't get bored of the activity.
ReplyDeleteBeing bored actually has some mental benefits. This article gives a good summary of them.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I am bored, either I lie on the ground a pretend to have died, or play a board game.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm bored I like to do hobbies that I enjoy like playing the piano. It's interesting to read what the feeling of boredom actually is and how we respond to it.
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