How To Deal With Boredom
The quick answer is no! The complex answer is maybe. Boredom is a state of being weary and restless through lack of interest. When you are feeling bored, your mind is not being stimulated. Your current activities just don’t do it anymore and you find yourself losing drive to perform them.
The problem with boredom is that it can gain more and more energy over time and become a bigger problem. It’s a mentality that is very easy to get stuck into if you do not eliminate it in its infancy. Today, you may be bored for half an hour, while tomorrow you may be bored for two hours.
It’s not so much the activities that make you bored, but rather you mindset and will. It’s as if the mind is stuck in limbo and you are just waiting for a resolution. The way to deal with boredom is to jump back into your activities or new ones as soon as you start feeling boredom coming on.
Do not give boredom a breeding ground. As soon as you sense it, detach from the feeling by distracting your mind with an activity. The more you do this, the less you will experience boredom. From time to time, it’s normal to experience it but only for brief periods, like 5-10 minutes. But chronic boredom increases your risk of developing a substance use disorder or mental illness.
Allowing boredom to take over your mind like a malignant neoplasm can turn out to be very dangerous. People who aren’t stimulated for longer periods of time can start to experience depression. Long periods of boredom stir up feelings of insecurity, uncertainty and low self-esteem. And this can promote substance abuse as a way to cope with the negativity.
Over time, this can quickly progress to major depressive disorder, the leading cause of disability worldwide. When one enters depression, it is very difficult to experience remission without treatment and/or strong family support. Depression is like a virus that slowly shuts down the system; in this case, the mind, body and soul.
When depression advances far enough, suicidal ideation, intent and plan become evident in many people. As you can see, uncontrolled boredom can lead down a path of mental destruction. Therefore, always stay preoccupied and keep your mind active and stimulated!
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DSM (Defeating Stigma Mindfully) 