Feeling a bit bored? It could be just what you need to produce your best ideas, excite your creativity or simply give your brain a rest.
Nowadays, in the age of round-the-clock entertainment, it's (technically) trickier to be bored. If the show you're watching has lost its spark, you can easily amuse yourself on social media without even leaving the sofa. But that's not necessarily a good thing. Feeling disengaged from the task in hand, or a lack of stimulation (刺激), does have its benefits, according to researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.
Being bored motivates you to search out something less boring to do. For example, if you decide there's nothing worth watching on TV, you might choose to switch off and take up a new hobby. This, according to researchers, can explain why the lockdowns of the past two years saw a surge ( 激 增 ) in creativity among people stuck at home from banana-bread-making to picking up a paintbrush for the first time since childhood.
But what about those times when you have no choice but to stick with the boring situation, waiting for a bus, for instance? The good news is that the boredom you're feeling now could spark your creativity later, says a 2019 study published in the Academy of Management Discoveries journal. People who'd taken part in a bean-sorting task later performed better at coming up with creative ideas than another group who'd been given something more interesting to do first.
Ultimately, don't take it for granted that there'll always be something close at hand to entertain us. With boredom, we will not run the risk of becoming bored ourselves.
