Anxiousness is a state of heightened arousal. Anxious persons feel out of control. Depressed persons feel that negative punitive emotions are out of control. A common symptom in depression is a mind out of control: “I can’t concentrate, life has lost its meaning, my mood is swinging.” Paranoia is a perception of a world threatening to go out of control. “Someone is planning to kidnap me, someone is watching me.”
At first glance, boredom, doesn’t seem like an out-of-control state.
Boredom is a state of poor control.
In boredom, your environment is not responding to your liking. You have a day with nothing planned, no deadline, no commitments. This might seem a recipe for pleasure, respite, contentment. But, for most people a stale or stagnant state is painful, difficult to negotiate. It is a state out of your control. The turbulence is inside you. You are on sitting alone, on edge, not satisfied, fidgety, feeling uncertain.
What do you do? Do you watch television? Read?, Put puzzles together ? When you are in this state, you notice that time slows down. Not because time is actually moving at a different speed, but it is that you attention to it that’s more twisted, discombobulated.
Watching television, reading, or any number of similar tasks are strategies to act on your turbulent state of mind, to make your circumstances more responsive to your needs.
A frequent declaration I get from clients who are bored is: “I’m here today because, frankly, doctor, I’m bored. Nothing to look forward to and there is nothing I want to do right now. I’m not even sure why I’m meeting with you.” “Am I depressed?”
“Am I depressed?”
How do you find out if you are bored?
The BOREDOM PRONENESS SCALE measures emotions and thoughts that people have when they are bored. It is a lengthy scale, so I’ve copied a few questions below to self-assess whether you are feeling bored. Scoring these questions would be: 1 Not at all, 2 Once in a while, 3 About half the time, 4 More often than not, 5 Always
Time always seems to be passing slowly.
I am trapped in situations where I have to do meaningless things.
Much of the time I just sit around doing nothing.
It takes a lot of change and variety to keep me really happy.
It seems that the same things are on television or the movies all the time; it’s getting old.
If you score higher than 15 on these 5 questions then you are a likely candidate for boredom.
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A paradoxical feature of boredom is that we often aspire to states where we are likely to be bored:
I can’t wait to retire, then I can start enjoying life.
I want to be free of the burden of deadlines and timelines.
If I inherited a lot of money, my life would be free and complete.
Jim: His bored life
Jim worked for the IRS for 40 years. It was a difficult job and one with many timelines and deadlines. He complained about it, but mostly it met his needs for something to do. A routine he could count on. As Jim reached the 39 year-work mark he started to anticipate retirement. He had a health problem that needed medical attention which meant seeing doctors to monitor his symptoms.
Jim had done some financial planning. When retirement arrived he had both a pension and a 401K to his credit. His house was paid-off. He started to travel, but his health made traveling arduous and painful. He lost interested in travel, but his spouse enjoyed it, so he went along as long as he could. Soon, he started staying home because he complained that he was too ill to travel. She wanted to go, so she traveled for a while with friends.
Jim’s retirement left him with time but no plans to use it. He spent long days at home. He lived in a planned community and his yard was kept up by a service. So, he got out very little. His wife started needling him to find something useful to keep his mind occupied. She noticed that his sedentary lifestyle had caused him to gain weight and his disease symptoms seem to worsen.
At 66 years of age and with considerable fiscal resources, but some health limitations, Jim’s wife started to wonder if Jim was becoming depressed. He was sleeping more, never going out of the home, becoming more negative about his life circumstances and critical of others including his adult children, his spouse, his neighbors. No one ever called Jim, not even his kids. She suggested he see a mental health therapist to work on his attitude.
When Jim saw me for the first time he was quick to point out that he was coming in because his wife had suggested it. He was reluctant to divulge much about his life and his interests, in part, because he was not convinced that talking about his issues would do any good.
At first, it was painful for me to see Jim. I never looked forward to our sessions, but his resistance posed a unique challenge because he was incredibly loyal, showed up every week, on time. When I asked what he thought the sessions were doing for him, he always responded with ambiguity. “That’s for you to decide doc, not me. I’m still as miserable as ever.” It seemed at times that he was almost taunting me with the idea that nothing would make him better.
What is Jim to do?
How will he deal with his own sense of boredom?
Jim eventually found some sources of fulfillment, one source was our weekly therapy, but he found more. In my next entry I will discuss further how people ultimately find their way out of a “bored” existence.
How to Deal with Boredom
Boredom responds well to positive emotional experiences. In fact, as this figure below depicts, the introduction of positive emotions, tends to diminish boredom. When you are bored, it is easy to focus on the negative. In fact there might even be a cycle associated with it. The more you dwell on negative emotional states, “I am frustrated about A, B, or C,” the likely your feelings of boredom will increase. There is something to be said that “a positive mindset is a busy mind, and a busy mind is an engaged mind.” Try this strategy and see if it breaks the cycle of boredom.