Why Boredom Is Good For Emotional Growth

Hello,

Hello,

And welcome back to another episode of Overpowering Emotions,

Where I talk about things,

Big emotions,

Emotion regulation.

Today,

I want to talk about boredom.

I've had several kids that I'm working with ask about boredom,

And it was something I was going to talk about in several weeks,

Just part of the emotion regulation series when I start talking about the functions of emotions and boredom was going to be one of the functions that I was going to be talking about.

But with it being summertime at the time of this recording and sort of at the part of the summer where kids are going to start to get bored or maybe they've been bored already for a little bit,

This is perfect timing.

And even if kids are not bored just because their summer is jam-packed and they're busy every day going to camp or going to do things,

It's still really important to listen to this as well,

Because kids need to have bored time.

And it's not just kids.

You got to think about how much time you're feeling bored as well.

We also need to have boredom periods because we're living in this world.

It's just overflowing with so much activity,

Constant stimulation all of the time.

Our brain is constantly being bombarded all day long by stimuli,

Whether it's audio podcasts.

Maybe I shouldn't be admitting this because you're listening or watching right now,

But we're taking in,

You know,

Audio,

Visual,

We're on screens all the time.

And so it's really easy to become bored,

Especially with such a stimulating,

You know,

Screens are so stimulating.

The minute we're not on a screen,

Even if we're busy doing other things,

It can feel like we're bored.

Right?

And boredom can start feeling really uncomfortable.

It might start feeling like it's a problem to solve.

And especially when kids are saying,

Oh,

I'm bored.

And so we're like,

What about this?

And what about this?

We're trying to solve it.

But it might actually be a solution.

So we got to be really careful.

Now,

As an ADHD or myself,

Being bored is really hard for me.

It's so,

So uncomfortable.

So I get it.

And it's not even being bored,

Just like trying to purposely go on vacation to go relax,

Right?

It's uncomfortable for me to embrace.

Doing nothing.

But we all will feel like this,

Whether we have a diagnosis or not.

There's always so much to do,

Right?

And I know for me,

That's the biggest thing is I can't just sit down and read a book because I've got all these other things that I need to do.

It's hard for us to slow down,

But our brains aren't built that way.

It's not built for all of this busyness.

Our brains haven't changed that much in a long time,

250,

000 years,

Right?

Most of our time was spent,

Yeah,

We'd be foraging,

Looking for food,

But we'd be also conserving energy where we would just be sitting and resting.

And waiting,

Right?

Not much to do.

So our brain wasn't built for the busyness.

It was definitely not built for all of the stimulation that we've get.

And we've unfortunately grown very used to feeling every single quiet moment filled with something,

Right?

The audio or the visual.

Our brains are constantly being bombarded with all of the notifications,

The emails,

The texts,

Reels,

Podcasts,

TV,

Internet,

Scrolling,

Background noise.

It's just go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go.

Even just white noise.

Something's always on the go.

We really need to pause and rethink this and what's best for our brain,

Not just for our kids,

But for us as well.

Because if we're never stopping to slow down,

We can really easily constantly feel anxious or tired to the point of just exhaustion.

We can be easily overwhelmed.

We can be really unfocused.

Boredom forces us to pause.

And that pause gives our brain space to breathe.

It just gives our brain a break.

Which our brain needs,

Right?

Now,

When we're looking at boredom,

It's not just having nothing to do.

Boredom actually is a biological signal,

And I'll be talking a lot about that brain-body connection and the biological signals,

But it's a biological signal coming from our body that there's some mismatch between our internal cognitive energy and whatever the external demands are.

Our brains are hungry for stimulation,

Hungry for novelty,

For meaning,

Or challenge relative to our own capacity or our own expectations.

But it's craving these things,

And it has nothing new to latch on to.

Green-filled world,

It's even more overstimulated,

Constantly wanting more of that stimulation.

So it's normal to feel bored,

Obviously,

Especially in this day and age,

But even before,

You know,

Screens were dominating our world.

But it's all about how do we respond to that boredom?

And how we respond to boredom has everything to do with executive functioning.

Our executive functions,

Our problem-solving capacity,

Even creativity.

Now,

Unfortunately,

We're filling this boredom time usually with more stimulation.

We turn to a screen,

We start scrolling,

Right?

But when we do that,

We're building up this tolerance and the dopamine hit isn't big enough.

Same thing with drugs,

Right?

You start off little,

It feels great,

But then you need more and more and more.

And it's the same thing with screens.

We need more and more and more stimulation.

And so the big discomfort that we're actually feeling,

That biological signal,

In this day and age with all the digital screens,

It's really a withdrawal symptom.

Because we keep getting that dopamine hit.

So same thing with drugs,

We have uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms.

So the junkie just wants to go and get another hit,

Right?

To feel better.

And when we're constantly getting that dopamine hit with our screens or our highs from constantly being occupied all the time,

Just on screens,

Our brain wants more of that.

And now we need more and more and more and a bigger hit because we do start building that tolerance.

All of that to say that's part of it.

We have those uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms.

So what do we need to do?

We've got to detox,

Don't we?

But boredom can really stress the executive functioning system in the brain.

So when we're looking at the key executive functions that are engaged in our response to boredom,

It includes things like cognitive flexibility that enables a shift in our thinking when a task feels boring,

Unrewarding,

Monotonous,

Repetitive.

It also gets the working memory,

Which allows kids to hold and manipulate ideas to invent maybe alternatives,

New solutions.

It taps into inhibitory control,

So that's preventing impulsive behavior that's driven by the discomfort of boredom.

There's planning an organization that supports sort of proactive engagement in an idea generation.

It also taps into self-monitoring,

Which helps kids track how their internal state's influencing their thinking or their mood.

So without all of those skills,

Which a lot of our kids don't have,

And I will be talking about some of them,

Impulse control coming up pretty quick here,

Because that's a key foundation for everything.

But without those skills,

Boredom usually leads to reactive behaviors.

So it could be the whining,

I'm bored,

There's nothing to do.

It could be irritability,

It could be mischief,

It could be excessive screen use,

Because they just do that.

Maybe it's learned helplessness.

So there's a couple of things here when we're looking at this.

One is,

What if we just sat in that space?

Like I said,

I'm telling kids,

Yes,

You're bored.

This is a perfect opportunity to be able to work on emotion regulation because it's a fairly easy emotion to sit with.

You know,

It's not quite the same emotion as if your sibling came into your room and messed up your room or took your favorite toy or something like that,

Right?

That could be really overwhelming.

So it's a fairly,

When we're looking at,

You know,

How challenging,

How reactive we might be to something,

It's fairly easy to just sit with and really practice riding the wave of discomfort.

And another,

I will be talking more about distress tolerance in weeks to come as well as part of this process,

But this is a great opportunity to start building that,

Right?

That discomfort.

Sitting with it and being okay with it.

Now most of us,

And most unfortunately our kids,

They've learned to avoid quiet,

To avoid stillness.

We're always using the screens and the noise and the busyness to regulate emotions.

And so we're never taught how to just sit with anxiety and sadness and loneliness and shame.

Whenever those come up,

Somebody's reassuring us or trying to make us feel better or distracting us.

But we really need to sit with it.

And boredom really forces us to be able to confront that inner world,

Right?

Normally it's very uncharted territory for all of us.

Because we live in this quick fix society,

Right?

As soon as I have a headache,

I've got five people.

Oh,

Do you want an Advil?

Right?

Everyone's like,

Let's just get rid of that versus just being able to sit in it for a second,

Right?

We're always trying to eliminate any discomfort at any time.

So if we really want to help kids regulate emotions,

If we want them to tolerate distress,

If we want them to grow into these reflective,

Creative humans,

We have to let them sit in that discomfort.

We need to model it ourselves,

Right?

I'm not just saying yes.

You are bored,

Great opportunity for you,

But I gotta keep myself busy,

Right?

This boredom,

It's a great opportunity for all of us to practice in.

And there's so many advantages even to boredom.

If we do just let it take over a little bit,

Right?

It doesn't matter how old we are,

Boredom is beneficial because being overstimulated all of the day,

Even if it's fun stuff,

It keeps that brain in high alert mode.

So like I said,

Boredom gives it space to breathe,

To relax,

But it gives the brain space to process.

Boredom lets our nervous system sort of chill out,

Right?

It chills out,

It resets,

It's that break that it needs.

It's reducing the cognitive overload.

It's helping the nervous system move from the fight or flight-free sort of system into a rest and restore system.

We actually can start to feel calmer if we let it happen.

If we're trying to fight against it and keep busy,

Right?

We're never going to have that sort of reset.

So it's good for all of us,

Right?

And it's good for kids to see us embrace that stillness,

To embrace that boredom,

Right?

I'm just going to sit with it.

Even if you're not feeling bored,

You're just enjoying,

You know,

Whatever,

Being able to say,

Yeah,

You know what?

I'm bored too.

Let's just sit in the stillness.

That can really normalize the downtime as a healthy time,

As an important reset time.

Because otherwise,

We're just taking the resources from our brain and we're using it.

No wonder we're exhausted all the time.

It's not punishment,

It's not wasted time,

It's a necessary break that our brain and body really need.

Now,

The other thing is,

It's not just reset.

That boredom can really boost creative problem solving.

We have two brain modes that I talk about.

The task positive,

The focused,

We're working on something mode,

Right?

We're doing our homework,

We're doing our craft,

We're focusing on something.

And then the default mode,

That's where our brain actually likes to be.

And it should be in the default mode about 50% of the time.

They should be in each of those modes.

And that default mode is where boredom activates,

Right?

Or like the default modes activates in that boredom.

This is where the brain starts to wander.

You know,

Kids get to sort of time travel.

They get to think about different scenarios.

They get to think abstractly.

They're coming up with creative solutions to things.

They come up with ideas.

Maybe they're combining old knowledge and new ways,

Right?

This is all the daydreaming.

All of this.

This is where the best ideas pop up.

It's not when we're trying to sit down and come up with a good idea.

It's usually when we're on a walk.

We're not thinking about anything.

We're in a shower,

Right?

That's where the best ideas pop up.

So when we stop feeding our brains this non-stop input,

We're making room for new connections to form.

Boredom is the gateway to creativity,

Right?

So I'm saying Yay!

If you're bored,

That might be the start of some imaginative play.

It might be the start of some exploratory problem-solving or self-directed learning.

During COVID,

It was fantastic.

My girls were bored.

I'm like,

Okay,

Well,

You know,

What are you going to do?

We're going to sit with this for half an hour and see where your brain goes.

And in that half hour,

It was incredible.

One of them's like,

Oh,

I want to do a PowerPoint presentation.

The other one's like,

I want to do a PowerPoint presentation.

And so just something that they were interested in.

One was really interested in learning about Hitler.

I think it was grade three around that time.

But hey,

It's self-directed learning.

Really interested in those types of things.

So that's sort of the gateway.

We need that,

Right?

Maybe they're experimenting with different things.

It could be science.

It could be artistic,

Right?

Maybe they're creating goals.

Maybe they're developing their identity.

You know,

Our older kids,

It might just be figuring out who am I,

Right?

All of that only happens if we're not jumping in to rescue them with entertainment all the time.

If we stop filling this boredom gap and we just let it sit and be there,

We're giving our kids very important developmental opportunities to improve their internal locus of control.

That's building their resilience.

It's fostering independence.

It's fostering persistence.

So we want to make sure that we're capitalizing on it and not trying to give them ideas and fill the space.

And even just taking those breaks,

I mean,

Short periods of intentional stillness,

You know,

If we can take a break and close our eyes for five minutes.

Right?

Or maybe just watch a tree sway in silence.

We're going to reset our attention systems.

And that's really important for ourselves throughout the day,

Just to do that.

And I know for me,

I can get on my computer.

I'm like,

I got to do this report.

I got to do this thing or I got to like this morning from four till 10,

Six hours.

It's a weekend today.

You know,

The time I'm recording this six hours,

I was stuck on one thing,

But I can feel my brain being exhausted.

I would have done way better,

Been way more productive if every 45 minutes or so,

I was taking about five to 10 minutes just to sit and do nothing.

Nothing.

When we do that,

It helps us focus better.

It helps us become way more productive.

Right?

So if you feel like you can't focus,

I mean,

That's a sign that your brain's probably overworked.

So taking those short do nothing breaks,

It actually does help with our focus,

Our energy.

It helps you get back onto tasks with better productivity.

So that's really important.

So we really want to make sure we're scheduling,

Even if we're not feeling boredom or having these boredom periods,

We want to make sure we're scheduling these micro pauses.

It could just be three to five minutes of that intentional stillness throughout the day,

Right?

The more,

The better,

Really.

No phone,

No music,

No conversation,

Right?

Don't be doing anything.

It's literally just nothing,

Doing nothing.

You can close your eyes.

You can look out the window.

I mean,

You can just focus on your breath,

But it's not actively trying to do anything else.

Right?

And we want to make sure we're teaching kids the same thing so that they can use that as a good ready tool when they go to school.

Right?

And that's going to be really important just so we can start ingraining it.

This is just part of life and living and being productive and,

You know,

Using our creativity.

So it's a great skill to learn for mastering emotion regulation as well.

So it does tie back into the emotion regulation piece because simply just you know,

Sitting and noticing what's going on internally is really going to be important for our kids when I get into these more complex episodes about some of the internal metacognitive sort of approaches where they really have to figure out what's going on inside.

And a lot of our kids and even adults,

We just have no clue because we're bombarded all the time.

We really don't have the opportunity to figure out what's going on internally.

You know,

Making sure that they really are having those times to observe their thoughts,

Their physical sensations,

Right?

Maybe every morning it just becomes a ritual.

It's not fixing,

It's not judging,

It's just noticing what's happening because that's going to be a really important skill to bring to big emotions when those big emotions come up.

Part of this,

To make sure that we're capitalizing on this boredom stillness period,

Is just to normalize it.

We want to frame boredom,

Just like any other emotion,

As a normal emotional signal.

It's not something to be feared.

It's not something to be eliminated.

And I'm going to be talking a lot about that when I do get to all the different you know,

Emotions,

Even really uncomfortable ones.

It's not anything to eliminate or try to fix.

We can change our language a little bit,

Right?

So instead of I'm bored,

Maybe I'm resetting.

Or I'm giving my brain a break,

Or I'm taking a creativity break or something like that,

Right?

Because sometimes it's,

I'm bored.

It just comes with this negative connotation.

And sometimes it's just that little linguistic shift that can make all the difference.

So for encouraging kids to adopt,

You know,

This different type of language,

It just really helps them understand that doing nothing is also doing something and is also important for overall wellbeing,

Right?

So that can be really helpful.

Definitely take breaks from tech.

Definitely reduce the stimulation.

You,

Kids,

Everybody.

Watch things like caffeine,

Multitasking,

Even just background noise,

Okay?

Especially if you're already feeling edgy,

That's just adding to that stimulation.

And kids can pick up on our dysregulation too.

Calmer adults equals safer emotional environments where our kids are going to be better able to regulate their emotions.

All emotions have benefits.

I'm going to be talking about that in weeks to come.

Never problems to fix,

Just remember that.

And with boredom,

It's really an invitation to reset,

To reflect,

Maybe to reconnect.

We just want that boredom to play out.

Not rushing into fill the space or find solutions.

We want them to be able to just sit in that discomfort long enough.

But that's going to stimulate initiative,

Whatever initiative that they've got,

Right?

So letting them be bored,

It's probably just the best thing you could do for them and for yourself for the summer,

Right?

Just having that time.

All of this to say,

Though,

I do have a list of activities that I've put together over the years.

I'm going to put that in the show notes.

I'd say,

You know,

At a different time when kids aren't saying that they're bored,

You can show them that list.

Maybe,

You know,

Before they say bored,

You can be proactive and say,

Hey,

Here's a list of different things.

You know,

Feel free.

You can use it like a menu sort of thing.

Don't don't say when you're bored right but you can just say that it's there because that could be one of the things that they are figuring out okay How am I feeling?

What am I doing?

Now I'm creative,

Right?

But now I've got this list that's gonna now spark some creativity after they've had a little bit of a break reset,

Right?

So we just wanna use that resource proactively,

Right?

Rather than reactively trying to get them to choose something when they're saying that they're bored,

Right?

We want them deciding on their own and seeking that out on their own.

So that's gonna be really important.

I'll leave it there today.

Hopefully that's helpful.

Definitely use this opportunity to maximize sitting in discomfort because that's going to be the work that's going to be coming and a little bit harder of the work.

So we really want to capitalize on this.

Have a great day,

Help those kiddos be bold and courageous,

And I will see you next time.