Kick the Boredom Habit - Light the fucking candle!

The smell of boredom ripples through the room. The sameness of the atmosphere and the visual repetition is crippling. You’ve been here before - yesterday actually, most days to be honest. You know that because one, it’s your room and two, the sensory cues slap you in the same way a sudden downpour ruins your summer day. The first thing that caresses your nostrils is the scented candle - ‘Pink Grapefruit Vetiver and Mint - Positive Energy’ - the label reads. Occupying its space in your eye line as you walk in your room you notice the candle first every time, partly because of the subtle smell of a strong candle that still has wax on the wick - completely unused. But, also because there’s an irony in the way you feel when you read that label. 

The books glisten with the second, maybe third, layer of dust. Not quite enough to be a mental health issue but enough to know it could be heading that way. The peace lily proudly displays the dust coat on its leaves as it takes place on the shelves too. The solo houseplant is the next object that gains attention. It always makes you stop and think because you know it hasn’t flowered for over a year - and you’ve never once tried to find out the best way to look after them. It reminds you of your mum, because she bought it. And, again, you take note of the irony that it benefits your health just by sitting there and doing shit to the air! But right now it’s just reminding you of how you feel most of the time sitting in this room. 

You know deep down what you have to do, if the candle does what the label describes, you could just light the fucking candle. Whatever it is that puts that positive energy in your narrative - deep down, you know what it is. So, what’s going on that means the actions are scarce? What is the brain struggling with? This is a personal experience of ‘being bored’ - or worse, the fear of boredom. And, what’s going on in  the brain that makes us feel this way in a world where it’s almost impossible to be bored. 

The spiral may well continue as the boredom encloses - suffocating and dark beige. Like being in a room with no windows and all six surfaces are painted the same colour - shit feels close. The psychologist Martin Seligman coined the term “Learned helplessness” after a series of experiments during the 1960s. The term describes “both the perception of inescapability and its associated cognitive collapse.”(Medina 2014, 60)

The experiments are pretty extreme but they show once an animal realises the ‘pain’ isn’t going to stop so does the resistance to it. It’s the same for you, the human being. Even when there are clear options to choose not to suffer it was found that you no longer “understand the options. Learning has been shut down.” You can relate to this experience - even though you’re nowhere near the extreme stress the animals felt in the experiments - because the spiralling boredom is the stressor in your example and it’s easier to sit and do nothing and think about what you ‘should’ be doing. This can go on for days. Sometimes if the stressor is particularly harsh it could be weeks, even months. Until it’s a chronic condition. You’re not there though - the thin layers of dust are not representative of learned helplessness. 

Luckily you appreciate that although these repetitive times aren’t nice there’s an understanding about the brain like never before. You are self-aware and the mental health is, well, healthy to be fair. There’s an understanding that a brain like yours will create this situation for itself - the resistance to the ‘pain’ - the feelings of being bored or the stressor are so consuming that you’ll just let them happen, much like the ‘learned helplessness’ example. This in turn isn’t helped by your executive function not being its strongest. This could well be the neurodivergent impact but it can also be that stress or being stressed will cause your executive function to be impaired - and this is the part of your thinking that helps with your problem solving and self control. 

So, how can you expect to be productive when the stressful situation, the boredom in this example is creating a negative experience. It’s okay to accept that in this moment there is a stressor that is impacting the brain. You know deep down you would love to feel the motivation to be creative - but that’s difficult when the problem solving and self control areas of your brain are struggling. 

The boredom is painful, of course it is, it’s full of ‘should’ sentences but you’ll more than likely make a plan - whether you realise it or not. You get bored of being bored so you change something.

The brain does have a little slither of helpful gold for you though. In this moment you may well feel the stressful situation of boredom but the reason you become bored of being bored is what’s known as BDNF or Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor. “BDNF is the premier member of a powerful group of proteins called neurotrophins. BDNF in the hippocampus acts like a peacekeeping force, keeping neurons alive and growing in the presence of hostile action”. Says John Medina in Brain Rules, “As long as there is enough BDNF around stress hormones cannot do their damage”.(Medina 2014, 68) Which means the continual boredom, at this point at least, won’t become chronic - for now. 

The room will always be the room complete with its unused candle and dusty surfaces. You’ve noticed the glistening dust and sometimes even marvelled at it - especially that moment around 7am when the sun perfectly pings off the surfaces and your eyes fixate on the tiny particles. Noticing, that’s the good stuff right there. You know that even feeling like this, rough as eggs, any noticing will be beneficial. At any point you remind yourself that even if this moment is almost tourterous you can’t be anywhere than you are right now. “That’s a fact” you mutter to yourself. And at this point there’s usually a change in attitude. There’s an acceptance, it feels like when you finally unlock the fire exit door after 5 minutes of jigging the key around like a shit lock picker - it clicks and the door opens. 

When there’s a feeling of being stuck, breathing and noticing will help right away. You already know this. And, now you know that although your brain feels like it’s pulling on the lead like a big fucking dog after spotting a squirrel - there’s the glorious BDNF acting as the commands that help the dog behave. The squirrel gets off quick time and you stand and wish that your boredom could be that squirrel. It can of course, but like the squirrel, you know it will be back and you could do with being okay with that. So how can you be okay with that? It requires a varied toolbox. But for this situation you make a plan. The notes comes out on your phone with it’s funky little ticking off feature and you make a short list - not an overwhelmingly unrealistic one - a beautifully simple one. 

O - Watch squirrels in the garden

O - Light the fucking candle

O - Dust off peace lily

O - Text Mum

O - Go for a walk down the brook

O - Go shops

O - Cook a banging tea

O - Make a target list for tomorrow

And notice where that gets you. You can’t be anywhere else than you are right now.

References

Medina, John. 2014. Brain Rules. Second ed. Seattle, USA: Pear Press.