Who is afraid of boredom?

Boredom used to be one of my biggest fears. I went through a difficult period because of a health treatment that, while I was adapting to the medication, gave me a crazy anxiety crisis. And one of my greatest worries during this time was not having anything to do and feeling that time wouldn’t go by. As if I absolutely needed some activity to make the hours pass. In my head, without it, I would be almost frozen in time watching the seconds drag around slowly. It’s even hard to explain how and why this led me to panic.

On the other end of this, when I was a child, I didn’t even know what it was like to be bored. I didn’t need anything to entertain me besides my own mind. I could stay for hours and hours alone anywhere imagining a thousand stories and worlds with the most different characters. Objects gained life, an umbrella was a sword, a painting on the wall was a portal to another realm. I know that creativity is like a muscle that needs to be exercised. But as a child, this muscle is developed much easier. It’s cliché to say this, but I miss those times.

I used to make the most of idleness with this fertile imagination during childhood. Today I run from boredom in another way, trying to fill each and every space with some activity or, at least, a background noise. Even in the daily tasks. Washing the dishes watching a series, sweeping the house listening to a podcast, taking a shower listening to music. Whenever there is a spot in my day in which there is nothing to do, I need to find something. Studying, playing, reading, writing, going out for a walk, watching videos, talking to someone, and, obviously, the greatest ally of current boredom: social media. If there is nothing else to do, I take my cell phone and scroll through the feeds. Yes, the excess of screens is a big issue for all of us, as we already know. Because, as contradictory as this might seem, the more we dive into instantaneous stimulation, the more bored we get and the more stimulation we seek.

Even children don’t have this free space to enjoy idleness anymore. Because, even though there has been preoccupation from parents in limiting screen time, there are those who fill their children’s time with so many extracurricular activities that there is barely time for the child to play. This is another big current problem, this obsession with productivity. We have to be productive all the time. Even to be able to enjoy time doing nothing we need a justification that makes that time productive somehow. But don’t worry, this justification exists.

I was reading about the importance of having this free unstructured time – because boredom might not be the best word – and several studies show that idleness can make our minds more creative*. During this time our subconscious is activated and our mind makes unexpected connections. That’s why, from now on, I will try to incorporate these moments into my routine. Washing the dishes without watching a series at the same time, taking a shower without music once in a while, and even separating a few moments of my day to do absolutely nothing.

* I will leave here a link to an article from BBC that shows a few of these studies: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/vert-cap-41654211