Imagine you are sitting in a restaurant alone waiting for your order to arrive. You are feeling the anxiety as everyone around you is having their time and you are just sitting there alone. Your first move would be towards getting your phone out from your pocket. So, that you will have something to give attention to. Why can't we literally just sit idle for some time without any distractions? Why do we always need some stimulation which keeps us hold of our attention? That's because we are reducing our boredom. Boredom is becoming extinct.
The boredom pocket. As the author Chris Bailey says in his book 'Hyperfocus' "Boredom is the feeling we experience as we transition into a lower level of stimulation".
In the above graph, you can look at the fall in our stimulation. That fall is said as boring. Now the boredom pocket [Boredom pocket is my word formation] is the period between giving the order and receiving your food in the restaurant which I referred to in the example. When we get into the boredom pocket we urge for stimulation so that we can give attention to something. Read the book summary of Hyperfocus here.
Why we can't survive the boredom. Eating your dinner in front of the TV when you are alone at home seems pretty interesting rather than sitting alone at the dining table and just having the meal. The thing is we can't really survive boredom or the state of less stimulation. That's because boredom is not enjoyable, it's not interesting nor it gives you a feel of a dopamine hit which we get when we are scrolling Social media. Another reason we can't survive boredom is that we live in an overstimulated environment where we are always covered with screens. Our brains have been wired to the super-normal stimuli as we are experiencing the dopamine fastening. We can watch a stand-up comedy video and get entertained whenever we want and wherever we want with high-speed internet. These things are also causing things like brain fog. You can check out this blog about how overstimulation is ruining our life.
Benefits of boredom.
So, how we can actually get into the normal stimuli. A simple way is accepting boredom. So the next time you are standing in the queue at the billing counter in a supermarket then don't take your phone out. The more boredom we can get the more clearly we can think. Because when you are constantly in front of a screen your mind keeps on rolling once you are without your devices. These distracting devices have filtered out boredom. When one task feels less stimulating our minds start wandering for more stimulating tasks. You can even try some slow-paced work like reading a book. But if you want to really give boredom a shot then you should check out meditation because nothing is more boring than sitting at one place with your eyes closed and constantly bringing your mind to consciousness once it starts wandering. I would suggest you, trying out 10mins meditation every day. It just gives you some clarity about your thinking. Read this blog about meditation to know more about it. When I was studying for my college exams during the lockdown I was able to hold my focus and thinking clearly. But once my exams were done there wasn't any slow-paced work which I was doing so I started losing my focus and I wasn't able to work on tasks like reading blogs or books or even learn something new. Also, I was procrastinating a lot. But, then I increased my meditation time and since then it's been pretty better than before.
Manage your attention accordingly and accept some boredom so that you can have these small opportunities to focus on something really important to you other than your phone.
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Cheers ✌️.