Why getting bored is important for our mental health
Anshika Dixit | NM Digital | Dec 29, 2025, 20:20 IST
Boredom is not an enemy but a friend. It helps rebalance the nervous system and calms anxiety. Allowing the mind to rest and process thoughts is crucial for mental well-being. Boredom also sparks imagination and creativity. Embracing idle moments can lead to new ideas and a more peaceful self. Try letting boredom in for clarity and peace of mind.
Remember the last time you were bored?
Not ‘scrolling-on-Instagram-bored’ but truly bored. Staring at the ceiling, doodling on a paper or simply daydreaming.
Chances are, it’s been a while. Because somewhere along the way, boredom became our enemy. But in reality, it is our best friend. Being bored might end up being a psychologist’s best advice to everyone who visits the clinic!
As kids, we often whined, ‘I’m bored!’ and eventually found ourselves building forts out of pillows, inventing new games like pointing out all the colours we saw around, or just watching the clouds form different shapes and pass by as we sat at the window.
Time passed by just like those clouds and we all grew up with our own experiences. Now as adults, boredom rarely visits us between all the responsibilities, deadlines, meetings and what not. Even if it does, we have a plethora of activities to kill it, to shove it away and to keep ourselves “busy” and hence “happy?”. And it’s not because our lives are fuller now, but it’s because we never let boredom in.
We always have something to watch, something to read or something to worry about. When we don’t, we start believing we are wasting time and being lazy.
We are so full of information and so pressured under our never-ending to-do-lists, that we hardly find any spare time for ourselves.
And no, I don’t mean we are all such huge workaholics that we never think beyond work but the problem in fact is that we don’t think enough.
We don’t sit idle with our thoughts as much. We always have our screens, social media and the world around, to keep us engaged. We are either scrolling through reels, reading random people’s unrequited opinions on X or just watching some creator roast the other for no reason at all.
None of this, most of the time, holds any relevance in our lives.
In all, boredom has vanished from our lives in recent times and it is important that we take some time to realise how important it actually is to get bored sometimes.
Research shows that being bored rebalances the nervous system and reduces sensory input in the brain, to help calm anxiety.
While we are sitting idle and feeling ‘bored’, we are actually letting our mind rest and clean itself. Just like we often sit and clear our phone galleries, deleting random pictures and videos that we no longer need.
Just the same way, like we put pictures in different folders, our brain needs time to process our thoughts and segregate them into different sections.
It is partly done when we are sleeping and is mostly subconscious. The conscious clearing of thoughts and emotions while we sit idle and let ourselves be is the true exercise our minds need to be healthier. Facing our thoughts that we are too scared of, thinking deeply and even overthinking at times helps us more than we understand.
Often, early signs of mental health struggles become clearer when we sit with our thoughts and face them. We may just eventually understand what bothers us and thus look for solutions.
Similarly, ignoring our thoughts while keeping the mind busy with work, stimulation from reels and social media, and constantly having something playing on Netflix, only stops us from actually understanding ourselves.
Boredom is not just good for mental health but even better for creativity. Studies have shown that boredom activates the same areas of the brain that are also responsible for imagination and creativity.
It’s true, the human mind cannot possibly ever be free of thoughts and we all know that.
When we are sitting idle and doing nothing, the mind rushes around looking for ideas. It tries to find something of interest and something to create.
For someone interested in music, it might be a tune they heard in an unknown bird’s pecking on the window and that rhythmic tik-tik might just turn into music!
For someone fond of art, the moving and ever changing shape of the clouds might turn out to be an inspiration for their new painting.
And for someone like us writers, who love looking for new stories, a new idea might strike by a stranger’s appearance or by something we, of course by chance, eavesdropped from strangers!
Do you now see how sitting idle and getting bored could give way to a world of new ideas?
So the next time you catch yourself reaching for your phone in a quiet moment, stop. Let boredom in.
Who knows, it might just lead you to your most creative, peaceful self.
Try it now, maybe?
Keep down your phone and just do nothing for a few minutes. Look around, get familiar with your surroundings and just exist.
You are sure to find some clarity, if not peace of mind!
Not ‘scrolling-on-Instagram-bored’ but truly bored. Staring at the ceiling, doodling on a paper or simply daydreaming.
Chances are, it’s been a while. Because somewhere along the way, boredom became our enemy. But in reality, it is our best friend. Being bored might end up being a psychologist’s best advice to everyone who visits the clinic!
As kids, we often whined, ‘I’m bored!’ and eventually found ourselves building forts out of pillows, inventing new games like pointing out all the colours we saw around, or just watching the clouds form different shapes and pass by as we sat at the window.
Time passed by just like those clouds and we all grew up with our own experiences. Now as adults, boredom rarely visits us between all the responsibilities, deadlines, meetings and what not. Even if it does, we have a plethora of activities to kill it, to shove it away and to keep ourselves “busy” and hence “happy?”. And it’s not because our lives are fuller now, but it’s because we never let boredom in.
We always have something to watch, something to read or something to worry about. When we don’t, we start believing we are wasting time and being lazy.
We are so full of information and so pressured under our never-ending to-do-lists, that we hardly find any spare time for ourselves.
And no, I don’t mean we are all such huge workaholics that we never think beyond work but the problem in fact is that we don’t think enough.
We don’t sit idle with our thoughts as much. We always have our screens, social media and the world around, to keep us engaged. We are either scrolling through reels, reading random people’s unrequited opinions on X or just watching some creator roast the other for no reason at all.
None of this, most of the time, holds any relevance in our lives.
In all, boredom has vanished from our lives in recent times and it is important that we take some time to realise how important it actually is to get bored sometimes.
Research shows that being bored rebalances the nervous system and reduces sensory input in the brain, to help calm anxiety.
While we are sitting idle and feeling ‘bored’, we are actually letting our mind rest and clean itself. Just like we often sit and clear our phone galleries, deleting random pictures and videos that we no longer need.
Just the same way, like we put pictures in different folders, our brain needs time to process our thoughts and segregate them into different sections.
It is partly done when we are sleeping and is mostly subconscious. The conscious clearing of thoughts and emotions while we sit idle and let ourselves be is the true exercise our minds need to be healthier. Facing our thoughts that we are too scared of, thinking deeply and even overthinking at times helps us more than we understand.
Often, early signs of mental health struggles become clearer when we sit with our thoughts and face them. We may just eventually understand what bothers us and thus look for solutions.
Similarly, ignoring our thoughts while keeping the mind busy with work, stimulation from reels and social media, and constantly having something playing on Netflix, only stops us from actually understanding ourselves.
Boredom is not just good for mental health but even better for creativity. Studies have shown that boredom activates the same areas of the brain that are also responsible for imagination and creativity.
It’s true, the human mind cannot possibly ever be free of thoughts and we all know that.
When we are sitting idle and doing nothing, the mind rushes around looking for ideas. It tries to find something of interest and something to create.
For someone interested in music, it might be a tune they heard in an unknown bird’s pecking on the window and that rhythmic tik-tik might just turn into music!
For someone fond of art, the moving and ever changing shape of the clouds might turn out to be an inspiration for their new painting.
And for someone like us writers, who love looking for new stories, a new idea might strike by a stranger’s appearance or by something we, of course by chance, eavesdropped from strangers!
Do you now see how sitting idle and getting bored could give way to a world of new ideas?
So the next time you catch yourself reaching for your phone in a quiet moment, stop. Let boredom in.
Who knows, it might just lead you to your most creative, peaceful self.
Try it now, maybe?
Keep down your phone and just do nothing for a few minutes. Look around, get familiar with your surroundings and just exist.
You are sure to find some clarity, if not peace of mind!