what can you do when you are bored?

We are quite spoiled these days when it comes to the activities we can engage in to enjoy ourselves. It’s not hard to have new experiences every day, especially if you’re willing to pay for it. But sometimes you have those days when boredom strikes. We therefore answer the question: what can you do when you are bored?

First aid for boredom

It can regularly happen that you are very bored at home. You don’t have the budget to do a paid activity, you have no inspiration what to do or none of your friends have time.

Boredom strikes at that moment, and you are hopeless how to counter this boredom.

What is boredom anyway?

It is quite difficult to define the word ‘boredom’. De Dikke Van Dale describes it as “an unpleasant feeling of emptiness that makes time seem long”. Boredom is not something objective, but something personal.

The feeling you experience when you have nothing to do and are not interested in your surroundings. It is linked to the concepts of dullness and tediousness. Many people also describe it as ‘understimulation’.

Boredom past and present

Some argue that boredom did not occur or at least to a much lesser extent in earlier times. Over time, the number of stimuli we receive from ‘every nook and cranny’ has increased significantly. Technology in the form of smartphones and the like naturally plays a crucial role in this.

Is there a lack of incentives? Then we quickly feel bored these days. When we are bored we are somewhat apathetic. We often have little energy, show few emotions and lack motivation.

What are causes of boredom?

When people are bored, they don’t see their circumstances as vibrant, stimulating, or enriching, and they lack the energy to make a change on their own. One is bored faster than the other.

People who are easily bored are often less able to be alone and are less able to entertain themselves.

Relationship to social and physiological factors

Social factors can underlie boredom. If you haven’t learned to get in touch with your environment, you’ll get bored sooner. If you have the limited concentration level of someone with ADHD, you are also more likely to get bored. After all, you need stronger incentives to be stimulated.

In some cases, boredom can even be attributed to physiological causes. If you, as a human being, have less dopamine in your brain, the hormone that gives you a happy feeling, you will be more likely to get bored.

Is boredom good or bad?

Although most people experience boredom as a burden, boredom does have positive sides. And, contradictory enough, it is precisely this difficult side that entails the beneficial effect of boredom. Because because we want to dispel boredom, sooner or later we will look for new possibilities.

Boredom breeds creativity

Short-term boredom encourages you to be creative and pay attention in a new way to things that you find boring in the current way. You take action against your boredom. In other words, boredom provokes curiosity and decisiveness and that has brought the whole of humanity to where it is today.

Is boredom healthy or not?

Boredom is healthy to some extent. Because the stimulus it evokes ensures that our brains continue to develop. In this way, even new brain cells are created and new cell connections are realized. When we are always busy, we don’t give our brain the chance to do so.

If you don’t get the opportunity to do something with your boredom and if this feeling persists for a long time, it can lead to serious problems. In that case, you can even become depressed.

In what situations do you get bored?

Boredom can arise in various situations. Below we list different situations, some of which you will probably recognize.

• Being home alone a lot: home is the place you know inside out, so you sometimes appreciate the stimuli there less strongly and you get bored at home. You can then feel lonely.
• With your partner or with your friends: shared fun is twice the fun. But if you have nothing to do together, the boredom actually feels even heavier. Sometimes this leads to negative stimulus-seeking behaviour, such as rowdy behavior among young people.
• With the children: not feeling satisfied as a parent of young children from the activities you do with them? Many parents suffer from this.

What can you do when you are bored?

A feeling of boredom, how do you solve that? Are you forced to stay at home, for example because you are a bit sick? In that case you already have little energy. Watching Netflix all day is obvious, but there are still more stimulating activities.

We list 10 tips against boredom!

1. Find a podcast on the Internet or a voice conference from a comedian. Your imagination is much more triggered without images;
2. The same goes for reading a book. That stimulates your visualization and time flies;
3. If you have the physical energy for it, reorganize your wardrobe, throw away things you no longer wear or sell them and create new combination options;
4. Finally learn that new language. The many applications, including ordering a beer on vacation, will continue to stimulate you;
5. See if you can volunteer from home. That gives satisfaction anyway;
6. Grab a stack of magazines and get to work with scissors and glue. Turn it into a mood board and inspire yourself with new ideas about anything and everything. That creates new perspectives in your life;
7. Finally plan that tour in that country you’ve never been to. What do you do on day 1, day 2, etc.? You don’t have to book anything definitively yet, but you can already experience that holiday from home in this way;
8. Is planning a tour too much research for you? Then make it easy and make photo books of trips you’ve already taken. This is how you relive them again;
9. What do you like? Coffee, beer, cakes, fresh bread? Then learn how to bake and brew those things yourself. You will enjoy that for the rest of your life;
10. Many people tend to neglect their creative ability. Therefore, focus on activities such as dancing, making music or drawing and painting. This is an ideal time.

Boredom with friends: 10 tips to beat it

Are you bored with your partner or with your friends and you have no money for expensive activities? In any case, the advantage is that you can do activities for which you need more people.

These are our 10 tips against boredom with friends.

1. Go learn a duo or group dance together;
2. Go cook something delicious for each other and surprise each other;
3. Go play board games together. At first you may feel resistance, but then you quickly notice how much fun that is;
4. Are you bored with your loved one, maybe it’s time for ‘the best sex there is’? Just get started. The feeling may come naturally. No lovers? Perhaps you can go for a massage. Also tasty!
5. Make a photo album together of all the fun things you did with your partner and/or your friends. This is how you retrieve old memories;
6. Go into town and show each other nice and special places that you know;
7. Make a work of art together. With more people you often look at it much less critically and you laugh at the result;
8. Do duo or team sports together like ping pong, squash or whatever. Then you automatically create new happiness hormones;
9. Practicing karaoke can be very liberating, even if you can’t sing;
10. Come up with skill games with records to break. For example, the distance from where you can spit a ping pong ball into a cup. You’ll be sweet with that for a while.

Fighting boredom with children: 10 tips that will help you

When the children are bored, it is difficult for you as a parent. Most of the time, they prevent you from getting anywhere, whether it’s cleaning or work. You may not be bored as a parent, but it is certainly annoying.

This is how you solve that annoying feeling in yourself and your children:

1. Go dress up together. Daughter in mom’s evening dress. Hilarious;
2. Make a virtue of necessity and clean up and redecorate your child(ren)’s room together. The tidy feeling will also give you satisfaction;
3. Go play a game of luck with your child, then you don’t necessarily have to let it win and you will still get opposition. Children are also surprisingly good at memory;
4. Especially for the fathers: build a fort or a camp together using all the items that are loose and stuck;
5. Involve your children in household activities such as gardening, cooking, cleaning. Focus on them learning something from it and don’t focus too much on the outcome;
6. There are many ‘game boxes’ for sale with which you can do scientific experiments and the like with your children. This way you also learn something new;
7. Build something from the Lego, Knex, marble track or other toys. Make it more awesome than your kids ever could but pretend it’s their job;
8. Do puzzles and give your kids the straight pieces that make up the edges and corners. That will keep you busy for a while;
9. Blow bubbles. You and your children will never cease to be amazed by the beauty of a soap bubble. Google it and you will learn how to make wondersop for extremely large bubbles;
10. Craft a harness with the kids, using boxes you get from the supermarket.

Fighting boredom? Time for action!

Boredom is not only bad for you, it also invites creative thinking and ultimately action. If you really can’t think of anything yourself, use our tips for boredom in different situations. Whether you are alone at home, together with your partner, friends or children: the boredom will be over in no time.

Do you have a great tip that helps fight boredom? Let us know in one response!

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