Why Being Bored is Good

Have you ever found yourself reaching for your phone the moment you have a few minutes of downtime? Or felt uncomfortable sitting in silence without something to watch, listen to, or do?

We've come to believe that boredom is something to avoid at all costs. But what if boredom isn't a problem to solve? What if those quiet, unstructured moments are exactly what your brain needs to think more creatively, solve problems, and restore your mental energy?

In this episode, Lisa challenges the belief that every moment needs to be filled with activity or content. She explores the fascinating neuroscience behind boredom, explains how your brain's default mode network supports creativity and insight, and shares simple ways to intentionally create space for productive mind-wandering. You'll learn why embracing boredom isn't wasting time—it's giving your brain one of the most valuable productivity tools available.

This week, episode 322 of the Positively Living® Podcast explores why boredom is good for your brain and shares practical ways to use quiet moments to boost creativity, problem-solving, and mental well-being.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand why boredom isn't a problem—but an important signal from your brain.
• Learn how the brain's Default Mode Network (DMN) supports creativity, reflection, and innovation.
• Discover why unstructured cognitive time is essential for productive thinking.
• Recognize how constant digital stimulation prevents your brain from making meaningful connections.
• Learn why mind wandering is a powerful tool for problem-solving and future planning.
• Explore the surprising research showing why people often avoid boredom at all costs.
• Understand how social media and constant scrolling can leave you feeling less satisfied over time.
• Learn why boredom can feel especially uncomfortable for people with ADHD—and why it's still valuable.
• Discover simple ways to create intentional low-stimulation pockets throughout your day.
• Learn why starting with just five minutes of quiet can strengthen your brain's creative capacity.
• Recognize the importance of observing your habits without judgment as you practice stillness.
• Reframe boredom as "unstructured cognitive time" to better appreciate its purpose.
• Learn why allowing children (and yourself) to experience boredom encourages creativity and independence.
• Hear how embracing quiet moments can support both your productivity and nervous system.
• Discover why making room for boredom may be one of the most productive habits you build.

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LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Episode 172: Why the Simple Act of Pausing Will Make You More Productive

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Transcript

Lisa Zawrotny: 0:23

We treat boredom like a problem to solve, but today I'd like you to see it as a benefit to the brain. The science on this is fascinating, and it makes a strong case that unstructured cognitive time, time when your brain isn't being directed toward a task or fed a stream of content, is not wasted time. It might be some of the most productive time you're not allowing yourself to have. You're listening to the Positively Living Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Zarotni, founder of Positively Productive Systems, and a productivity coach certified in positive psychology and stress management. Join me as we explore ways to live a more proactive, positive life with episodes on productivity, self-awareness, mindset, entrepreneur life, habits and systems, simplicity, fun, and more. I understand overwhelm personally as a multi-passionate entrepreneur, wife and mom to kids and cats, and as a caregiver I'm here to help you choose what's right for you, so you can do less, live more, and breathe easier. Sound good? Let's get to it. Welcome to the Positively Living Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa. And as this episode goes live, we're in the thick of summer vacation in my home. My kids are teens, so they have their own lives and plans, but there's a phrase they have uttered in the past during this time of year, and I bet you can guess it. If you have kids, you may have heard it before too, especially when school is out, and you may have also uttered the phrase yourself. Two words: I'm bored, usually delivered with a whine, an exasperation, or an Eeyore-like tone, and boy, does it trigger us. Our immediate instinct is to fix it, suggest something, grab a device, fill the gap. We treat boredom like a problem to solve, but today I'd like you to see it as a benefit to the brain. The science on this is fascinating, and it makes a strong case that unstructured cognitive time, time when your brain isn't being directed toward a task or fed a stream of content, is not wasted time. It might be some of the most productive time you're not allowing yourself to have. What is boredom? Actually, most of us think of boredom as having nothing to do, but psychologist Sandy Mann, one of the leading researchers in this area, offers a more precise definition. Boredom is having nothing to do that appeals to you in that moment. It's less about emptiness and more about a mismatch between the stimulation available and what your brain is actually looking for, your brain is essentially sending a signal, I need engagement, I'm not finding, and that signal has a purpose. That discomfort you feel when you're bored is motivating, it's your brain nudging you toward something. The question is, what do you do with that nudge when you stop directing your attention at a task when you're not responding to input or producing output? Your brain doesn't actually go quiet. A specific network activates, called the default mode network, or DMN. I mentioned this during episode 172 on why the simple act of pausing will make you more productive, and it's coming back around in this conversation. The DMN is the neural system associated with mind wandering, self-reflection, future planning, and creative association, all of the things that you need to be able to change up your life and make plans and give yourself a chance to create resolution and problem solve and innovate. It's the part of your brain that's running when you're in the shower and suddenly solve the problem you've been stuck on for days, which I deeply, deeply resonate with, because I solve all the world's problems when I'm exfoliating. I swear, I don't know what it is, it's magical in there, and I really do think it's the quiet, and I think that's what we're discovering. It is, it's not magical, it's the DMN. It's what's happening when you're driving in the quiet with no kids in the car, and suddenly ideas come at you out of nowhere. The DMN is responsible for your brain making connections, processing experience, and generating new thinking. Researcher Jonathan Smallwood, whose work focuses specifically on mind wandering and the DMN, has described these regions as being positioned in the brain in a way that supports thought that's independent of what's happening around you. So, it's one thing to be inspired when you're looking around and you're in nature, but this is actually independent from your surroundings. It's daydreaming, which is a different kind of thought process. When you're not being pulled by external demands or external influence or stimuli, the brain shifts into this generative mode. This is the link between boring. Boredom and mind wandering, and why it's so important. Boredom creates the conditions for the brain to wander, and as Tolkien aptly put it, not all who wander are lost. With the benefits of boredom right there in the research, the goal may be to embrace it, but that's easier said than done. And I want to acknowledge that, and many researchers have as well. In 2014 researcher Timothy Wilson and his colleagues at the University of Virginia and Harvard published a study in the journal Science that still surprises people when they hear it. They put participants alone in a plain room for six to 15 minutes with nothing to do, but sit and think alone with their own thoughts. No phone, no book, no nothing. Most people did not enjoy it. Many found it genuinely difficult, and in one version of the study, and this is so wild to me, participants were given the option to press a button that would give them a mild electric shock. I mean, this sounds like a joke, right out of Ghostbusters, but I tell you, this happened. They had already said they'd pay money to avoid being shocked, and yet faced with 15 minutes of quiet, a significant number chose the shock anyway. Anything to not be bored. I'd say that's a shocking discovery. Okay, sorry, I'll see myself out after the episode's over. Okay, but really, it says so much about how the human mind works. We're wired toward action and external stimulus. We reject stillness so much that we even choose discomfort as an alternative. Think about that. Think about moments you've done the same, maybe not with electric shock, but with something else. And once again, the modern world does not help us. Platforms and apps are deliberately designed to fill every gap and make you want more. The moment you feel under stimulated, there's an algorithm ready to hand you something else to play with infinite scroll autoplay notifications, all engineered to intercept the exact moment boredom begins, and catch it before it happens. But the irony is that reaching for your phone doesn't actually resolve boredom, switching between digital content, scrolling, skipping over different things, jumping from one thing to the next, and the next, and the next, it can actually make you feel more bored over time, and definitely less satisfied. Researchers sometimes call passive scrolling social snacking. It looks like connection and stimulation, but, like junk food, it tends to leave you feeling unsatisfied and potentially emptier than before. It's like no neuronutritive value, if you will. As a side note, for people with ADHD, boredom is neurologically more aversive when dopamine regulation is working differently in the ADHD brain. So, here's what you're

experiencing: 8:20

the brain requires more stimulation to feel engaged, and so a low stimulus situation like boredom can feel genuinely more uncomfortable for you than most. For some, it might be mildly dull, but for you it could be painful. Now, that doesn't mean the value of unconstructive cognitive time disappears. It means accessing it might take a bit more effort on your part, a bit more intention, and that's useful to know. So, don't give up on it. There are ways to do this, and I'm here to help. We're going to talk about what you can do to make the most of boredom and essentially invite it in. So, in order to embrace that stillness and the quiet, which may sound familiar, because we've talked about it when we talk about meditating here as well, although in some cases guided meditation wouldn't be boredom per se, it's quiet with intent, but it's still the same kind of challenge, right, to quiet the mind. In this case, when you want to embrace the stillness and the quiet for boredom purposes, it will take practice, just like anything else. This is especially challenging when you have every device around you, and you carry one with you that's competing for your attention at any given moment. But here are a few approaches to consider. First is to create low stimulus pockets of time, intentional pockets where you're going to practice this. Those quiet moments that allow for boredom. Intentionally think about places and moments where you could make this happen. Great options might be commutes, walks, chores, even waiting rooms, or waiting in line somewhere. Now you have to be careful, because there can be a good bit of external stimulus, and if you can't block that out, it's not going to be the same thing. But a walk with noise-canceling headphones could be a great example of this. You want to make sure that you're not feeding noise through them, you're canceling the noise outside, but that could work really well. You are looking for. Natural opportunities for unstructured cognitive time, as we're calling it, and I think that feels more productive, and it feels better to say than being bored. Now, the default is to fill them, but the alternative is leave them open, so you're not meditating or journaling or producing anything in this instance, you have to keep thinking, here's a space I'm not going to fill it. Now, I realize in the case of maybe waiting somewhere in a waiting room, or even walking, you're going to make eye contact with other people, which can be extra awkward. So, I want to acknowledge that those things can happen. I would actually suggest starting with a solo experience wherever you can, maybe a solo commute, so no other people in the car, or something like chores where you're doing it on your own. The next thing you want to consider would be to start small, and this is so important for any habit, any practice, any skill acquisition. Think about what your threshold might be. If you're especially uncomfortable with this idea, keep it extra short. So, if 15 minutes, which felt reasonable to start, actually still feels really uncomfortable. And research suggests that it could try five minutes. The goal isn't that you're going to get it right or you're doing it for a certain period of time. None of that's reasonable. The goal is to get used to it, to practice it. It's to build a tolerance for the discomfort, so your brain has a fighting chance to move through it into something generative, so that it can create something new. I started practicing this idea with my short commute to pick up the kids at school, so it would only be one way once I have the kids in the car, that's different. So it's about 10 minutes, and every time I'd get in the car, I had a habit of turning on music or podcast. Nothing wrong with that, it's great use of time, and I do still listen to those, but eventually I thought, well, what if I didn't? What if I drove in the quiet and took this as a transition time, as a downtime? So I'm in the car for about 10 minutes, and at first it felt really awkward. I wanted to reach for something, I wanted to check something, I wanted to do something, but I've gotten used to it over time, and sometimes I look forward to that time, that break in the quiet. It's really good for the nervous system as well, so I'd keep it quiet on the way there to get the kids, and many times I will keep it quiet on the way back if they seem drained and like they could use a break, if they don't want to talk, if they're cranky, they're tired, even if it's not minutes of boredom per se, it's definitely 10 minutes of quiet for the nervous system. So there's multiple ways that this can benefit you. Another thing you could do is pay attention to how you're responding whenever you do any kind of new task. When you're building a habit, you want to notice what's going on, and you want to do it without judgment. Remember, we're being curious here. So, when you try to sit quietly, it's okay if you feel the pull to pick up your phone, because that's a habit in and of itself, so if you're paused and then suddenly you want to grab the phone and check something that's completely normal, it's okay. Notice it, notice when it happens, or even like how long into the practice when you've been sitting quietly. When does that happen? Try to catch yourself and make a note and be gentle with yourself as you practice, give it a different name if it helps, like I said before. Unstructured cognitive time can be the fancy way we describe it here, and maybe it sounds a little less threatening and a little less like you have a problem to solve, and something that you want, as opposed to saying boredom. Admittedly, it's a mouthful, so call it whatever you want, but really we're trying to be accurate about what's happening and what we want to have happen. You're giving your brain the conditions it needs to do something you can't force, and that's really good for you. And lastly, include your family, include your kids, include your partner. Going back to Sandy Mann, for all her research on boredom, she said she's perfectly comfortable when her own kids tell her they're bored. She sees it as the starting point for creativity, not a problem to solve. And I think we all need to embrace that idea. Resisting the urge to fix it for them or for yourself is one of the most countercultural things you can do, but this summer is a great chance to see the payoff for it. As we close this episode, I encourage you to find one pocket in your day, a commute, a walk, a few minutes before bed, even to leave completely open. No podcast, it's okay, you can shut this off when we're done, no scroll, no input, simply you and whatever your brain decides to do with that space. And if you're finding that building new habits like this one feel harder than they should, and you could use some more support, that's exactly what I work on with clients, and one of the easiest ways to get this kind of support, especially during time. Times where scheduling can be challenging for you. It's through something called async coaching. I will call it calendar-free coaching, even because you don't have to schedule a time. That's the brilliance of it. Async coaching is a flexible message-based alternative to traditional coaching calls. It's like coaching on demand. You share what's going on when you have a moment to do so, when it's important to you, you externally process with a voice message. If that's helpful, you can text, you can send images, pictures, gifs, whatever way you want to express yourself. You share it, and then I respond with support and strategy, and we work through it together on your schedule, not around a calendar, it's freeing, but you can get so far with it. And if you check out Positively productive.com/coaching that's the coaching page, you'll find all the different coaching options, including async coaching there, and all the details. If you pick that one, we can work together to figure out where the space actually lives in your life that you can grab for this boredom up, excuse me, unstructured cognitive time, and all the other things that you need to do. Remember, your brain knows what to do with the quiet. The goal is to stop filling the space long enough to let

Unknown: 16:39

it.