What If Boredom Is The Missing Link To Wellbeing

Rest should feel like relief, so why does it sometimes feel like danger? When we finally stop, many of us reach straight for our phones, food, noise, or “one more” episode, not because we are weak, but because our nervous systems have been trained to run fast for a long time. I talk honestly about what happens when you try to create a calmer home and meet unexpected pushback from your own brain, your family, and the chemistry of change itself.

We dig into dopamine in a grounded way. Dopamine is not the villain; it helps us learn, connect, and pursue goals. But modern screen time, notifications, and constant stimulation make us brilliant at chasing the next hit of anticipation. That is why boredom feels so uncomfortable for adults and teenagers, and why stillness can bring up irritation, fear of missing out, or emotions we have been numbing. We also touch on parenting, co-regulation, and how children, including neurodiverse kids, can get pulled into stimulation loops that look like “rest” but keep the body stuck in stress.

You will leave with practical tools for nervous system regulation that do not rely on quick fixes: a simple timer exercise to practise doing nothing, alternatives that count as real rest through movement and connection, and a family-friendly challenge called the five-minute gap. If you want a calmer, more purposeful life, this is a gentle place to start. Subscribe, share with someone you care about, and leave a review so more people can find their way back to their body.

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Welcome And The Rest Problem

Naomi Mills 0:01

Welcome to You Are the Answer, the podcast that helps you reconnect with the most powerful healer you know, your own body. I'm Naomi Mills, chiropractor, healthcare professional, and believer in the natural intelligence within us all. In this podcast, I explore what it means to trust your body, decode its signals, and take ownership of your well-being without quick fixes or health fads. Whether you're just beginning your journey or deep in transformation, I'm here to guide you back to the truth. You are not broken. You are the answer. Hello and welcome to episode 35 of You Are the Answer Podcast. And this episode is actually the sister episode to the last one, which was about changing your environment to help your nervous system. And today I'm going to talk about why rest feels so uncomfortable. Because as I'm encouraging you to make changes really through ever since the You Are the Answer podcast began, I try and make it as practical as possible for you to actually experience some of this regulation and change for yourself. This is what we come up against, that discomfort of change and probably a lot of pushback too. If you have implemented any of the changes we talked about last episode in terms of where our devices are, maybe bringing some plants in the house, maybe it was turning down the noise. Somebody in your household will have been like, What are you doing? I don't like it. Nothing wrong. Or, you know, some element of that because what happens is our systems get so used to running the pace they've been running at. It is incredibly uncomfortable on a chemical level and on every other level to change. We think,

Why Change Feels Chemically Uncomfortable

Naomi Mills 2:05

we really think, like, oh my goodness, I just want to create this beautiful, calm, restful, lovely life, this lovely environment. But it can take a lot of getting used to. And I know that better than anyone because when I ran my massive health and well-being business down in the East Midlands, and we had 12 rooms and 10 employees, and we did all the things, and my nervous system was in overdrive, and I sold it, and I come up to Scotland, and I consciously create this new, slower, more connected life that my whole being so desperately wants. My goodness, it was uncomfortable. I did not know what to do with myself. And if I'm 100% honest, even six years on, I am still learning. I am still learning to create more space and more slowness and more presence, and I am just much more aware. So we're coming back to this awareness concept again, that my brain is saying, Oh, you have a couple of hours, you could do this and you could do that, and why don't you just because it's been used to running on quite a fast level. And so if you did some of the work assessing your own home environment last week, and maybe you are the parent of some neurodiverse children, or just any teenagers, to be honest, any children, you will notice, but it is more pronounced typically with neurodiversity, there is a real pull towards stimulation, noise that they're enjoying. I know too much noise can be too much for some kids, but a lot of our children are drawn into I want to keep playing this game, I want to keep getting this feedback, I want to keep creating this sound. They get in loops because actually a slightly more heightened nervous system enjoys or needs this stimulation, even when it's not making life enjoyable for us or good for us, but it craves and it seeks the stimulation that it's used to. So you might identify that with anybody in your family at home. And I think if I think about something almost every one of us does, we sit down at the end of a long day, determined to relax, and finally put our feet up. And sometimes you just end up picking up your phone and scrolling on that for 45 minutes, or watching episodes of TV that you're not really enjoying, or just wandering around the kitchen looking

Stimulation Loops At Home

Naomi Mills 4:45

for something to eat. Or maybe you just notice yourself picking up your phone within seconds of being in a queue. And that's because rest does feel uncomfortable for many of us. And in the recent episodes, we've talked about overwhelm, we've talked about why teenagers are growing up in a world of constant stimulation. I talked about co-regulation and how our young people are using our nervous systems as their personal hotspot to kind of latch onto and set their own level. But there is something underneath all of those conversations and all of that work, is that most of us don't even know how to really fully stop. You go from working to scrolling to stress to overwhelm to distraction, but very rarely even into true rest. And if you've done the beautiful thing of last week and created yourself a more wonderful space to be in, or if you made yourself a calm corner, that might be why you find it difficult to use the calm space, the calm corner, or to maintain the less clutter, the things that actually felt good for your nervous

Dopamine And The Urge For More

Naomi Mills 6:00

system and your body. And it comes back again to dopamine, which we have talked about many times. Dopamine gets blamed for a lot these days, and it is not a bad thing. Dopamine is a chemical released in our brain, it helps us to learn, it's a feel-good hormone, it encourages exploration and connection and creativity, it lets us pursue our goals. But dopamine is often more about seeking than the satisfaction part. Dopamine is all about anticipation, the possibility, the next thing, which, you know, is very up my street, if you know anything about the Enneagram, which is kind of like a spiritual personality type. I'm a seven, we're all about the dopamine, the new, the new, the new. And that's why sometimes, you know, especially our young people, but all of us want one more reel, just one more notification, one more episode, just one more, because it's that compulsion that's being created chemically within our bodies. And when was the last time that you waited for something or did an activity just in silence, in peace? And how good are you at letting your children be bored? And we talk about this a lot in our household. As I've shared before, we try and give our child a more of an 80s, 90s upbringing. But before there was the opportunity, before it was so easy to get this dopamine stimulation, children would stare out the windows, which we're always telling her to do when we're in the car. They build dens, they'd explore the woods, they would make things up. I'm pretty sure there are, I'm not going to name drop any because I'll probably get it wrong, but there are multiple musicians that didn't know they wanted to be musicians or were any good at it until they got really bored and picked up a guitar or played a piano. There are so many chefs that just wanted something to do, so they got into cooking, people get into drawing. Like we know this purpose and passion and vision is not um the goal of this podcast today, but it's something I am incredibly passionate about, especially around our young people, finding purpose and vision, because that is one of the key ways our nervous systems really operate not just on a level of safety, but of a an abundance and wellness and feeling not just okay but awesome, is when we have a real sense of lived fulfillment and purpose, which is actually what brought me from that overwhelmed, busy life down in England that I was just describing, where my nerve, like it was running on a treadmill and didn't know how to stop, to sitting through the discomfort of the rest, which took a while and it took consistency and it took awareness that it was quite normal and okay to feel really uncomfortable, to the life I am leading now, which is much more purposeful and fulfilling and fun, and I'm healthier and I'm reaching out to do more things that I never thought I would do. And as a parent, we all want that for our children, and I really want it for you

Boredom As A Doorway To Purpose

Naomi Mills 9:15

as well. So we can start to think about rest or boredom as a door and a gateway to self-discovery. But why does it feel so unsafe and uncomfortable? And actually, when people come into my practice and their nervous systems are stuck in this fight-flight loop, and I want to help them break it, not just through the work I'm doing, I give them some homework, and I'm going to invite you to do this homework. And especially busy business people hate this homework. I think a lot of teens that I give this to dislike this homework, and that is to set a timer for five or ten minutes, maybe start with five first, and just sit and do nothing. When their nervous system is so unused to this, like it's used to rushing and achieving and thinking and worrying and being really aware of what your friends are up to, stillness can feel really uncomfortable. Because when the noise stops, then you're really hearing yourself. And I ask the adults and the children that do this just to be aware, just like have fun, be aware of what your brain is saying, which is usually this is really annoying, this is really stupid, I don't like this. And I think with young people, especially, there's a fear of missing out, I'm not doing what my friends are doing, everybody else is getting on without me, and actually allowing all of those things to be felt and be heard so we can acknowledge them is an incredibly

The Five Minute Stillness Homework

Naomi Mills 10:50

helpful part of life. So, really, as a parent, we need to model this rest for our children. If we tell them, look out the window, it's okay to be bored, this is something that they absolutely do need to help be more regulated and more in connection with themselves. That's something we need to do as well. And so, as adults, we numb through shopping or drinking or eating or cleaning endlessly. There'll be something that we do that distracts us from how we're feeling, and we see that in our kids too. The kids that want to eat all the time, they want to scroll all the time, they want to play all the time. As a species, we have become unpracticed at feeling our feelings, of allowing them to just process through, of being allowed to be bored. And if we think about everything you now already know about the nervous system, all of this unexpressed emotion, all of this held stuff is coming out physically in our bodies, making our bodies more tense, our heart rate's up a bit, our oxygen's down a bit, our digestion's down, our sleep is poor, our brain is busy, and that is the fight-flight stress loop that we talked about right back in episode one. And that's happening so often for our teenagers and our young people as well. And if you want to go back and listen to the mindset arc, there's a lot more information about this.

Rest That Includes Movement

Naomi Mills 12:25

Rest doesn't need to then be physically stopping. I only give that homework to adults and older teenagers who have a sense themselves that they kind of do want to learn how to switch off a bit. But I would say if you're kind of under 16, we're gonna teach them to rest, but with movement. That can be walking, gardening, cooking, knitting, drawing, drumming, singing, anything that's being in nature, maybe around a fire, having a connected conversation, having something in real life, physical touch. And that's where finding activities, hobbies, communities, and events where you can go as a family, you can all rest and re-regulate together, but we're not asking our 10-year-old who's absolutely addicted to Netflix right now to sit and do nothing because how successful is that going to be. So I'm going to suggest a practical experiment for you to try for the next

The Five Minute Gap Family Experiment

Naomi Mills 13:35

week. And I'm calling it the five-minute gap. And I'm just going to invite you to create five minutes for your family each day doing any of those relaxing activities together. So you guys can sit and plan what your relaxing activities might be. And it's a minimum of five minutes, it can be more. But actually starting to create the gap and maybe sitting through that boredom and discomfort together is going to make it a lot easier. And without expectation. So perhaps the agreement is that they they take part for five minutes. And when the five minutes are up, they might wander away. And you'll have to set your own rules and expectations as to what they have permission to do when they walk away. Because perhaps you don't want them leaping straight back into technologies and screens, but it might be that they want to go and read a book in their room or go wander off somewhere else. That's okay. But normalizing all of this together is for families the best way to move forward, I believe, and because you're doing it together, and because parents we need it just as much as our children do. So try it for one week, five minutes a day, and see how it goes for you.

Key Takeaways And Closing Invite

Naomi Mills 15:05

So remember today that dopamine is not bad, but modern technology is making us very good at being addicted to it. That boredom is so important because that's where we birth our creativity and our regulation. That stillness feels so uncomfortable for us and our young people because it's removing distraction. And that children learn how to rest by watching their adults. And rest is not the absence of being productive at all, but rest is something that we all require biologically, and there are many in-person, physical, joyful almost things we can do that will help our nervous systems feel at rest without that constant stimulation. Something I heard the other day, which is a little bit cheesy, but I'm using it to remind myself right now. You and your family can get better at being a human being rather than a human doing. Thank you for joining me on You Are the Answer. If today's episode sparked something in you, share it with someone you care about and leave a review to help others find their way back to their body too. For more tools, inspiration, and resources to support your journey, head to www.uareanswer.co.uk. And until next time, stay connected, stay curious, and remember, you are the answer, and you always have been.