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In a similar spirit, I was reading a few months back how we are ruining today's children's imagination by keeping them busy every waking moment. The problem (ps

In a similar spirit, I was reading a few months back how we are ruining today's children's imagination by keeping them busy every waking moment. The problem (psychologists discussed) was that kids need to be bored, and once they get bored they start day dreaming (https://www.parent.com/5-surprising-benefits-of-letting-your-children-get-bored/ https://www.parent.com/5-surprising-benefits-of-letting-your...) I started my journey to minimalism a year ago, that gave me time to get "bored", be and feel less busy, meditate more, focus more, and I could find new aspects of myself; boredom helped. The article writes at some point: '..and thereby slowing your mind.." I found this very liberating at yoga classes, where the savasana in the end of the sessions is combined with guided meditation or with just complete silence. Let the river if the mind Carey away the thoughts and the void/silence that will exist will be the best tool for the brain.

yazaddaruvala 7y ago
It’s interesting because I spent many hours when I was young daydreaming. But today I can’t remember the last time that I did. I’ve always found time to meditate but I don’t find that boring, and it doesn’t let me day dream like I used to in a Biology or History class as a child. I’ve been joking with my girl friend that my resolution for 2020 is to fill my days with less exciting things and somehow find boredom again. I always wonder if it’s the extra stimulation these days, or the extra responsibility or if I just headed my grandma’s words that only “boring people get bored”. Maybe it’s the freedom? As I child I was forced to sit in classes I didn’t enjoy. Today I have the freedom to get up and leave. I really want to understand boredom more in 2020.
- kilroy_jones 7y ago
  Leave your phone at home and go walk for 1-2 hours. You get a little exercise and as long as you're just cruising along level ground then you can space out for long stretches.
  - rorykoehler 7y ago
    Cycling does it for me
  - yazaddaruvala 7y ago
    I routinely go for 3 hour bikes rides where using a phone is not worth the risk attached lol. I love these bike rides and do a lot of thinking. But it’s not the same as when I was a kid and daydreaming and I’m not sure why. Maybe my mind is just more structured? So rather than meandering I end up think about more introspective/pragmatic things?
    - discreteevent 7y ago
      Try taking a break and sitting down for 10 minutes. It changes the atmosphere of the ride afterwards. Not in a major way, but it's good.
    - speg 7y ago
      I like to start with a good fantasy. What if I won the lotto or I had created Facebook? Then I could launch a war with the mayor. Become mayor. Create a new traffic enforcement group. Buy out the cable internet monopoly and make it a National coop. Or maybe I’m just crazy!
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Swimming laps is what does it for me. I don't swim competitively anymore, but I think competitive swimming provides a good, almost contradictory, mix of teamwork/socialization and isolation.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  I find it strange that adults don't daydream. I was one of those kids who live in his own head and was forever daydreaming and I as I grew up I never stopped helped I think by my early adult life been working on production lines/factories usually alone or so noisy ear protection was required removing any irrelevant conversation - I'd turn up, go onto autopilot and disappear into my head. I still do it now, if I'm walking along the riverbank near where I live the world recedes and I visualise how it must have looked hundreds or thousands years ago and imagine the people/animals around then and so on. It's both an escape hatch and a pressure valve for me - I also don't dream (or more correctly I do dream but maybe once ever couple of years I actually remember one) which I think is likely somehow connected. My partner finds it odd because she'll come into a room and I'll just be sat still staring into space completely unaware she's entered the room. This was a great article though, the idea of deliberately cultivating that state by sitting in an isolated place is attractive. There are days where I hate the modern world (while accepting all it's advantages) - the constant distractions, clamour for attention from everything, the splitting of time into tiny increments in which everything must be done, it often feels like the world is just slightly off axis and I don't fit. I've never found it an issue and an hour just sat in that state leaves me feeling refreshed and alert, the days where I feel the most flattened are the ones that are so busy that I don't get chance to do it.
  - atoav 7y ago
    I have to say I daydream all the time. If you were to ask me when I last did it, it was half a minute ago staring out of the window of a train. I am however somebody who always did this more than other kids and never lost it really. I hate beeing distracted all the time, stops you from seriously thinking about yourself and the world you inhabit.
    - magic_beans 7y ago
      When I was a kid, I had entire recurring plot lines of elaborate day dreams. These days my daydreams are more "realistic". I'm not fantasizing about riding unicorns and wielding ancient magic anymore, but I do daydream about starting my own company.
- ajmurmann 7y ago
  Your comment about daydreaming hit me really hard. I used to daydream all the time, but had completely forgotten that I even used to do it till you mentioned it. I now am always thinking about work, side projects, what to do next or worse investments. That's in the few moments when there isn't distraction like a podcast, audiobook reading it just simply doing random stuff on the phone. In essence even that is only while I'm in the shower. No wonder I'm never daydreaming. Thank you so much for providing this disturbing insight! I need to fix this..
mycall 7y ago
Too much boredom can breed depression.
- voisin 7y ago
  Source?
  - mycall 7y ago
    Friends I know.
- throwaway1777 7y ago
  I would suspect most people are nowhere close to that amount of boredom in an age when down time is always filled by looking at a screen.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    The screen may arguably be more likely to cause depression
- Ma8ee 7y ago
  Is that really true? Of course extreme deprivation of stimuli like in solitary confinement might do it, and of course loneliness, but I don’t think boredom in itself causes depression.
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  To summarise, research suggests boredom is distinct from depression. In tests, [3]people seemed to recover from depression much faster than they did from boredom. [4]Boredom is associated with rising HR, decreased SCL, and increased cortisol levels. [5]Those symptoms are possibly triggers for or present in people suffering from depression. People expressing high level of boredom may suffer from substance abuse, relationships and career building like with depression. Noting everything, it seems quite plausible boredom can be a trigger for depression and vice versa. Literally everything that causes boredom can also cause depression and the symptoms from both are trigger for each other despite being different enough. 0] Relationships between boredom proneness, mindfulness, anxiety, depression, and substance use: http://www.azmonyar.com/DownloadPDF/15562289.pdf http://www.azmonyar.com/DownloadPDF/15562289.pdf 1] Proneness to boredom mediates relationships between problematic smartphone use with depression and anxiety severity: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0894439317741087 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089443931774108... 2] Traumatic brain injury, boredom and depression: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/3/3/434 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/3/3/434 3] An open label pilot study of citalopram for depression and boredom in ambulatory cancer patients: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/palliative-and-supportive-care/article/an-open-label-pilot-study-of-citalopram-for-depression-and-boredom-in-ambulatory-cancer-patients/3EB20E1D6871E64B2C252CE8D99C166E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/palliative-and-suppo... 4] Characterizing the psychophysiological signature of boredom: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00221-013-3755-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00221-013-3755-2 5] Cortisol Secretion in Depressed and At-Risk Adults: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4451064/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4451064/
codegladiator 7y ago
> where the savasana in the end of the sessions fun fact, savasana translates to "Corpse pose" or dead man position in english.
- kranner 7y ago
  It's really "Shavasana" or (in IAST [1]) "Śavāsana". It is a spelling mistake to omit the acute accent from the initial Ś- or not spell it Sh-. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sanskrit_Transliteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sans...
JKCalhoun 7y ago
> The problem (psychologists discussed) was that kids need to be bored... Yes. It is why I made my kids endure road trips several times a year. I love road trips. All my good ideas come from the boredom of the open highway.
- w-ll 7y ago
  There is being bored and free to explore, and being bored and stuck in a car. I enjoy road trips today as an adult, but as a kid they were kinda torture.
  - thrwaway69 7y ago
    Agree...I would enjoy road trips if I wasn't so bad with traffic, noise, and being in a running vehicle. I prefer a bike over walking or being in a vehicle any day. The AC inside the car makes me nauseous like there is no tomorrow. The constant shaking and pressure you can feel by focusing (unintentionally due to having nothing else to do) makes me feel anxious af. I get a headache and want to vomit if I eat anything heavy inside the car. I just want to get out of that box...ASAP. It feels like a big prison. I feel disassociated too when there is different weather outside and I can't open the windows.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >There is being bored and free to explore, and being bored and stuck in a car. It's just as good a version of boredom for the stated purposes. People also need to learn to explore their mind and thoughts, not just their surroundings for the next thing to distract them.
  - _pmf_ 7y ago
    > as a kid they were kinda torture I'm sure I was just as big a pest as my own kids on road trips, but I don't have any bad memories of them. Quite the opposite, actually.
- brunoff 7y ago
  My last lonely motorcycle multi-day road trip through South America took almost a month, taking more than 10kkm. In those trips there are some distinct parts: the torture part when you are worried with the trip itself (counting each kilometer to destination, when will it be the next gas station); the wandering random thinking part (when in the middle of nothing and the landscape simply does not change at all) and the contemplation part (when you are in the middle of the mountains and begin feeling strangely good). This last good part sometimes come unexpected and can be better than the destination of the trip itself.
netcan 7y ago
Also... imagining/dreaming together with other kids. Left to eachother, kids often "play make-believe." This is basically brains freestyling what they do best, making meaning for everything.
- vidarh 7y ago
  I'm not convinced that requires a barren environment, though. My son spends hours in games with friends starting every other sentence with 'Imagine if...' setting out one crazy scenario after another using the game he's playing as nothing more than a prop.
  - netcan 7y ago
    "Barren" in some sense. Small children will play like this in a backyard, but not in an arcade.
krupan 7y ago
I'm sure they still get plenty bored at school

yazaddaruvala 7y ago

It’s interesting because I spent many hours when I was young daydreaming. But today I can’t remember the last time that I did. I’ve always found time to meditate but I don’t find that boring, and it doesn’t let me day dream like I used to in a Biology or History class as a child. I’ve been joking with my girl friend that my resolution for 2020 is to fill my days with less exciting things and somehow find boredom again. I always wonder if it’s the extra stimulation these days, or the extra responsibility or if I just headed my grandma’s words that only “boring people get bored”. Maybe it’s the freedom? As I child I was forced to sit in classes I didn’t enjoy. Today I have the freedom to get up and leave. I really want to understand boredom more in 2020.

kilroy_jones 7y ago
Leave your phone at home and go walk for 1-2 hours. You get a little exercise and as long as you're just cruising along level ground then you can space out for long stretches.
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  Cycling does it for me
- yazaddaruvala 7y ago
  I routinely go for 3 hour bikes rides where using a phone is not worth the risk attached lol. I love these bike rides and do a lot of thinking. But it’s not the same as when I was a kid and daydreaming and I’m not sure why. Maybe my mind is just more structured? So rather than meandering I end up think about more introspective/pragmatic things?
  - discreteevent 7y ago
    Try taking a break and sitting down for 10 minutes. It changes the atmosphere of the ride afterwards. Not in a major way, but it's good.
  - speg 7y ago
    I like to start with a good fantasy. What if I won the lotto or I had created Facebook? Then I could launch a war with the mayor. Become mayor. Create a new traffic enforcement group. Buy out the cable internet monopoly and make it a National coop. Or maybe I’m just crazy!
- catalogia 7y ago
  Swimming laps is what does it for me. I don't swim competitively anymore, but I think competitive swimming provides a good, almost contradictory, mix of teamwork/socialization and isolation.
noir_lord 7y ago
I find it strange that adults don't daydream. I was one of those kids who live in his own head and was forever daydreaming and I as I grew up I never stopped helped I think by my early adult life been working on production lines/factories usually alone or so noisy ear protection was required removing any irrelevant conversation - I'd turn up, go onto autopilot and disappear into my head. I still do it now, if I'm walking along the riverbank near where I live the world recedes and I visualise how it must have looked hundreds or thousands years ago and imagine the people/animals around then and so on. It's both an escape hatch and a pressure valve for me - I also don't dream (or more correctly I do dream but maybe once ever couple of years I actually remember one) which I think is likely somehow connected. My partner finds it odd because she'll come into a room and I'll just be sat still staring into space completely unaware she's entered the room. This was a great article though, the idea of deliberately cultivating that state by sitting in an isolated place is attractive. There are days where I hate the modern world (while accepting all it's advantages) - the constant distractions, clamour for attention from everything, the splitting of time into tiny increments in which everything must be done, it often feels like the world is just slightly off axis and I don't fit. I've never found it an issue and an hour just sat in that state leaves me feeling refreshed and alert, the days where I feel the most flattened are the ones that are so busy that I don't get chance to do it.
- atoav 7y ago
  I have to say I daydream all the time. If you were to ask me when I last did it, it was half a minute ago staring out of the window of a train. I am however somebody who always did this more than other kids and never lost it really. I hate beeing distracted all the time, stops you from seriously thinking about yourself and the world you inhabit.
  - magic_beans 7y ago
    When I was a kid, I had entire recurring plot lines of elaborate day dreams. These days my daydreams are more "realistic". I'm not fantasizing about riding unicorns and wielding ancient magic anymore, but I do daydream about starting my own company.
ajmurmann 7y ago
Your comment about daydreaming hit me really hard. I used to daydream all the time, but had completely forgotten that I even used to do it till you mentioned it. I now am always thinking about work, side projects, what to do next or worse investments. That's in the few moments when there isn't distraction like a podcast, audiobook reading it just simply doing random stuff on the phone. In essence even that is only while I'm in the shower. No wonder I'm never daydreaming. Thank you so much for providing this disturbing insight! I need to fix this..

mycall 7y ago

Too much boredom can breed depression.

voisin 7y ago
Source?
- mycall 7y ago
  Friends I know.
throwaway1777 7y ago
I would suspect most people are nowhere close to that amount of boredom in an age when down time is always filled by looking at a screen.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  The screen may arguably be more likely to cause depression
Ma8ee 7y ago
Is that really true? Of course extreme deprivation of stimuli like in solitary confinement might do it, and of course loneliness, but I don’t think boredom in itself causes depression.
thrwaway69 7y ago
To summarise, research suggests boredom is distinct from depression. In tests, [3]people seemed to recover from depression much faster than they did from boredom. [4]Boredom is associated with rising HR, decreased SCL, and increased cortisol levels. [5]Those symptoms are possibly triggers for or present in people suffering from depression. People expressing high level of boredom may suffer from substance abuse, relationships and career building like with depression. Noting everything, it seems quite plausible boredom can be a trigger for depression and vice versa. Literally everything that causes boredom can also cause depression and the symptoms from both are trigger for each other despite being different enough. 0] Relationships between boredom proneness, mindfulness, anxiety, depression, and substance use: http://www.azmonyar.com/DownloadPDF/15562289.pdf http://www.azmonyar.com/DownloadPDF/15562289.pdf 1] Proneness to boredom mediates relationships between problematic smartphone use with depression and anxiety severity: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0894439317741087 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089443931774108... 2] Traumatic brain injury, boredom and depression: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/3/3/434 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/3/3/434 3] An open label pilot study of citalopram for depression and boredom in ambulatory cancer patients: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/palliative-and-supportive-care/article/an-open-label-pilot-study-of-citalopram-for-depression-and-boredom-in-ambulatory-cancer-patients/3EB20E1D6871E64B2C252CE8D99C166E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/palliative-and-suppo... 4] Characterizing the psychophysiological signature of boredom: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00221-013-3755-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00221-013-3755-2 5] Cortisol Secretion in Depressed and At-Risk Adults: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4451064/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4451064/

codegladiator 7y ago

> where the savasana in the end of the sessions fun fact, savasana translates to "Corpse pose" or dead man position in english.

kranner 7y ago
It's really "Shavasana" or (in IAST [1]) "Śavāsana". It is a spelling mistake to omit the acute accent from the initial Ś- or not spell it Sh-. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sanskrit_Transliteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sans...

JKCalhoun 7y ago

> The problem (psychologists discussed) was that kids need to be bored... Yes. It is why I made my kids endure road trips several times a year. I love road trips. All my good ideas come from the boredom of the open highway.

w-ll 7y ago
There is being bored and free to explore, and being bored and stuck in a car. I enjoy road trips today as an adult, but as a kid they were kinda torture.
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  Agree...I would enjoy road trips if I wasn't so bad with traffic, noise, and being in a running vehicle. I prefer a bike over walking or being in a vehicle any day. The AC inside the car makes me nauseous like there is no tomorrow. The constant shaking and pressure you can feel by focusing (unintentionally due to having nothing else to do) makes me feel anxious af. I get a headache and want to vomit if I eat anything heavy inside the car. I just want to get out of that box...ASAP. It feels like a big prison. I feel disassociated too when there is different weather outside and I can't open the windows.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >There is being bored and free to explore, and being bored and stuck in a car. It's just as good a version of boredom for the stated purposes. People also need to learn to explore their mind and thoughts, not just their surroundings for the next thing to distract them.
- _pmf_ 7y ago
  > as a kid they were kinda torture I'm sure I was just as big a pest as my own kids on road trips, but I don't have any bad memories of them. Quite the opposite, actually.
brunoff 7y ago
My last lonely motorcycle multi-day road trip through South America took almost a month, taking more than 10kkm. In those trips there are some distinct parts: the torture part when you are worried with the trip itself (counting each kilometer to destination, when will it be the next gas station); the wandering random thinking part (when in the middle of nothing and the landscape simply does not change at all) and the contemplation part (when you are in the middle of the mountains and begin feeling strangely good). This last good part sometimes come unexpected and can be better than the destination of the trip itself.

netcan 7y ago

Also... imagining/dreaming together with other kids. Left to eachother, kids often "play make-believe." This is basically brains freestyling what they do best, making meaning for everything.

vidarh 7y ago
I'm not convinced that requires a barren environment, though. My son spends hours in games with friends starting every other sentence with 'Imagine if...' setting out one crazy scenario after another using the game he's playing as nothing more than a prop.
- netcan 7y ago
  "Barren" in some sense. Small children will play like this in a backyard, but not in an arcade.

krupan 7y ago

I'm sure they still get plenty bored at school