Are You Resting or Just Scrolling? Why Your Brain Needs Boredom

When was the last time you allowed yourself to be genuinely bored, without reaching for your phone, turning on a podcast, or filling the silence with another distraction?

In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie explores our relationship with technology and asks an important question: Are we actually resting, or are we simply giving our brains something different to process?

Constant stimulation can prevent us from experiencing the quiet moments that allow our minds to wander, reflect, make connections, and imagine what comes next. Julie introduces the brain’s default mode network and explains how mental downtime supports self-reflection, autobiographical memory, creative thinking, and our ability to picture ourselves in the future.

This isn’t an anti-technology conversation. It’s an invitation to use technology more intentionally—and to stop treating every empty moment as a problem to be fixed.

In this episode:

•  Why scrolling isn’t necessarily the same as resting 
•  How technology occupies the natural pauses in our lives 
•  What the brain’s default mode network does 
•  Why our best ideas often arrive while walking, driving, or showering 
•  How constant consumption can make it harder to hear our own thoughts 
•  Why quiet can feel uncomfortable 
•  The connection between mental space, clarity, and creativity 
•  A simple experiment to help you reclaim your attention 

Today’s Brave Move

Choose one ordinary activity and spend five minutes without your phone, music, television, or another source of stimulation.

Let your mind wander without trying to make the experience productive. Then ask yourself:

What have I been too distracted to notice?

Join Julie at the Recalibrate Retreat

If you need more than five minutes to step away from the noise and reconnect with what you want in your next chapter, join Julie for the Recalibrate Retreat, October 16–18.

Learn more and register at GoConfidentlyCoaching.com.

Transcript

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Hey, when was the last time you allowed yourself to get bored? You know, not bored while half watching television and scrolling through your phone, and not bored while you're standing in line and checking your email. I mean, really genuinely unstimulated. No phone, no podcast, no music, no television, nobody talking in your ear, just you and your thoughts. And we have become so accustomed to filling every empty moment that boredom can feel like something has gone wrong, and the second we have nothing to do, we reach for something to consume. But what if the empty moments aren't the problem, my friend? What if constantly saving ourselves from boredom is keeping us from hearing our own ideas and processing the experiences that we're having and imagining what we want next? Welcome to Brave Moves, my friend. I'm Julie DeLucca Collins, and this is a podcast about the small but courageous choices that help us build more confident and intentional, meaningful lives. Every day, we explore a brave move that may feel small in the moment but can create meaningful shift in how you live, you work, and you show up in the world. But today, we're talking about your relationship with tech, because I have a relationship with tech, trust me. And whether your phone is giving you a break or preventing your brain from getting one is the question I wanna definitely explore. Before we get into this episode, I wanna invite you to, if you haven't checked out the Recalibrate Retreat, October 16th and 18th, go to my website, goconfidentlycoaching.com, and you can find more info there. Stay with me till the end, because I'm gonna give you one simple boredom experiment you can try this week. It does not require deleting your apps, buying a special journal, throwing your phone into the ocean, honestly, which could be dramatic and probably terrible for the fish if you do that, honestly. But it only takes a few minutes, but it may help you hear something that all the constant noise has been covering up. Now let me be clear. This is not an anti-tech episode because I love tech. Tech is so rewarding at times, and it makes our life easier in so many different ways. Tech allows me to run my business. It allows me to host a podcast. I connect with people around the world. I learn new things through tech, and I remain in touch with people I care. But technology is an incredible tool. The question is whether we are intentionally using the tool or automatically reaching for it every single time life becomes quiet. Now think about the small pauses in your day. You're sitting in the waiting room at a doctor's office. Maybe you're standing in line in the grocery store, or you arrive somewhere five minutes early, and you're waiting for the water to boil. What do you do? For many of us, the answer is so automatic. We reach for our phones. You know, we don't make a conscious decisions. Our hands simply know where to go. We may tell ourselves that we're taking a break, But are we actually resting, or have we simply changed the kind of information we're asking our brains to process? You know, when we scroll, your brain is still working. You're reading, comparing, judging, reacting, clicking, shifting your attention, and you are taking in other people's opinions, accomplishments, problems, purchases, vacations, bodies, businesses, breakfast. That is stimulation, and it may be entertaining at the time, but it's not necessarily restorative. We have confused distraction with rest, my friend. A distraction may help us escape what we're doing, But a genuine break gives our attention a chance to loosen. You know, the space matters because your brain does not simply shut off when you stop focusing on external task. There is a group of interconnected brain networks called the default mode network. This network tends to become more active when our attention is not being directed toward a demanding outside task. It is involved in the internal thinking, things like remembering personal experiences, reflecting on ourselves and other people, maybe connecting ideas, imagining possible situations, and thinking about the future I've read scientists use the term self-projection now to describe our ability to mentally place ourselves in another time or situation. In body language, that means we can remember who we were, make sense of who we are today, and imagine who we might become. And this is not wasted time. That internal processing helps us make meaningful from our experiences. It is one of the reasons an idea may suddenly appear when you are showering, driving, maybe folding laundry or doing something that doesn't really require your full attention. I know that although I love listening but to podcasts, when I'm in the shower just showering with nothing else to think about, I come up with some of the best ideas. But at times, we have spent hours forcing ourselves to solve a problem, you know, only for the answer to arrive when you finally step away from the problem. The same thing when we're trying to remember that word and we're like, "Oh, what is that thing? What is that thing?" And we're racking our brain. When we stop thinking about it, it comes back. Your brain, again, does things differently. So we need periods of focused attention, friend, but we also need moments when our attention is not being pulled toward the notifications, the messages, the headlines, the videos, the tasks. If you've ever texted me, you will get a message that says, "Her notifications are off," or, "She's on do not disturb." I don't know what it tells you, but it tells you that I don't have my notifications on, mainly because I know that if I look at my phone and there's a notification, I am more prone to go look at it. Now, we need both things in our life. The problem is that technology can now occupy practically every open space in our lives. We watch something while we eat. We listen to something while we walk, scroll while we wait, and check messages while we're watching something else. The other day Dan and I were watching something. Oh, we were watching Supergirl, and he said, "Are you watching this or are you on your phone? Maybe You don't need to watch this." And I'm thinking, I am very interested, but also the pull of the phone had me. And we can be entertained from the moment we open our eyes until the moment we fall asleep, and that sounds convenient, but the question is at what cost? If you never allow your mind to wonder, when do you process what has happened to you? When do you recognize what you're feeling? When do you connect two ideas that may not be intentionally or initially seem related? And when you picture the life you want to create and you give your space to do that, it's because you get to hear your own voice without hundreds of other voices competing with it. And this is particular important when you're going through a transition in your life. Maybe your children are growing up, maybe your career is changing, maybe you are building a business, or recovering from a difficult season. I think that you The important thing is that we may be asking ourselves, "What do I do now?" But the answer is not gonna come from watching one more Instagram Reel and from somebody else's thoughts, sometimes we don't need more information. Sometimes we need quiet to recognize what we already know. Maybe you're not lacking clarity. Maybe your clarity has never been given enough silence to reach you. And I also want to acknowledge something else. Silent isn't always comfortable, and this is another episode in itself. When we stop distracting ourselves, thoughts and feelings can surface. We may remember a conversation we have been avoiding. I know, it happens to me. We may recognize that we are exhausted or notice the loneliness or the disappointment or perhaps the resentment or grief or the dissatisfaction that comes in life, and we may realize we want something different. Sometimes we reach for our phones because we are bored, and sometimes we reach for them because we don't wanna encounter what is underneath the boredom. That doesn't make us weak. It makes us human, friend. But if we automatically escape every uncomfortable feeling, we also lose the opportunity to understand what that feeling may be trying to tell us. Boredom is not always peaceful or creative. Sometimes it's irritating, and sometimes our minds wander into worry, rumination. And the goal is not to claim that every quiet moment will produce a brilliant idea that, makes you this fantastic emotional breakthrough that you've been waiting for. You know, the goal is to become capable of spending a little time with ourselves without immediately demanding more stimulation. Technology is designed to capture our attention because our attention has value. But your attention also has value to you. It shapes what you notice, what you think about, and what you remember, and ultimately, how you are going to experience your life, my friend, and you deserve to decide where attention goes. So here's your brave move for today. Take one intentional phone-free pause each day. Start with five minutes. It doesn't have to be big. Choose something ordinary, maybe when you're drinking your coffee, or maybe you sit outside or walk to the mailbox. Fold laundry, wait in the car before going into an appointment, and be in that silence just with you, yourself, and you. And don't let your mind be unoccupied. You do not have to meditate correctly. You do not have to come up with your next business idea. You don't have to turn this into another task to complete perfectly because that's not what I'm giving you another to-do. Just notice these times. Notice where your mind goes when you stop feeding it new information, then ask yourself, What thought kept returning? What feeling did you notice? What have I been too distracted to acknowledge? And what do I wanna do less of? If five minutes feel uncomfortable, begin with two. You know I believe in tiny habits, so the goal is not to prove that you have exceptional willpower. The goal is to interrupt the automatic reach for your phone. Technology is an incredible tool, but it should not occupy every empty space in your life. And remember, my friend, in a world that is constantly competing for your attention, choosing to reclaim five minutes of it is a brave move. And if this episode made you think of something that you need, maybe rest, maybe recalibration, like I said at the beginning of the show, I would love for you to join us at the Recalibrate Retreat because this is an opportunity to pause, reconnect with yourself, and create space for the ideas, decisions, and desires that are difficult to hear when everyday life is demanding your attention. And go to my website, again, goconfidentlycoaching.com, to register and learn more. And until next time, my friend, remember, go confidently in the direction of your dreams and choose one small action, practice it intentionally, and make it your brave move.