Boredom: Is It Good For You?

Summary

Science Vs – "Boredom: Is It Good For You?"

Podcast: Science Vs
Host: Wendy Zuckerman (Spotify Studios)
Date: April 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, "Boredom: Is It Good For You?", host Wendy Zuckerman and producer Michelle Dang untangle the viral belief that embracing boredom can supercharge creativity and improve well-being. They investigate what’s actually happening in our brains during boredom and whether deliberately seeking out boring moments is scientifically backed as beneficial. The episode features cognitive neuroscientist Professor James Dankert and organizational psychologist Professor Gi Han Park, who share research on the psychology, neurobiology, and potential upsides—and downsides—of being bored.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Boredom's Viral Comeback

• Trend: Online influencers are promoting "raw dogging boredom"—immersing yourself in boredom, free from all distractions, to recapture creativity and stillness ([00:00]–[01:15]).
• Central Question: Is boredom actually good for us, or just something to endure?

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2. The Modern Boredom Dilemma

• Digital Age Effects: Michelle Dang and Wendy discuss how easy it is to avoid ever being bored thanks to constant digital stimulation ([00:44]–[03:19]).
  • Michelle: "The second you feel bored, you grab your phone." ([00:49])
  • Wendy: Expresses worry about overstimulating her brain.

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3. What Happens in Your Brain When You're Bored?

The Default Mode Network (DMN)

• Neuroscientific Explanation: Professor James Dankert (University of Waterloo) guided research where people in an fMRI watched a painfully dull video (two men hanging laundry) and, for contrast, a stimulating Planet Earth clip ([04:41]–[07:24]).

  • Boring Video Effect: Boredom lights up the "default mode network," a collection of brain areas more active when we are not engaged in a task ([06:28]).
    • Professor Dankert: "It's active in things like daydreaming or mind wandering. It's active when you sort of prospectively think about the future." ([06:28])
  • Interesting Video Effect: The DMN is less active when we are engaged.

• Caveat: The DMN isn’t always positive—overactivation is linked to rumination and negative thoughts.

  • Michelle: "It doesn't make sense to claim that activating the DMN is always good..." ([08:19])

The Salience Network and Insular Cortex

• The insular cortex (part of the "salience network") dials down during boredom ([08:57]–[10:11]):
  • Role: Helps choose what is most important to pay attention to.
  • During Boredom: Brain wants to escape monotony; salience network is "lying in wait" to latch onto anything interesting.
    • Prof. Dankert: "This part of your brain, this network, is trying to say, okay, I've just been bored to death. I gotta find something." ([10:06])

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4. Is Boredom Motivating or Painful?

• Nature of Boredom: Scientists define boredom as a negative, agitated state—wanting stimulation that isn’t present ([10:29]–[11:01]).
  • Prof. Dankert: "When we're bored, we want something that matters to us, but we don't want anything that's currently available to us. ... It's a motivating emotion ..." ([10:40])
• Avoidance Behavior: People go to surprising lengths to avoid boredom—even shocking themselves.
  • Memorable Cite: In a classic experiment, 40% of people gave themselves electric shocks when forced to sit bored in a room, even though they had already found the shock unpleasant ([11:39]–[12:14]).
    • Wendy: "Almost half of them shocked themselves. And it wasn't out of curiosity. They knew ... they didn't like it." ([11:51])

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5. Can Boredom "Unlock" Creativity?

Gi Han Park's Bean-Sorting Study

• Real-World Inspiration: Professor Gi Han Park (Korea University) got the idea during dull faculty meetings, where she’d start doodling or brainstorming ideas ([15:59]).

  • Gi Han: "Faculty meetings are really boring. ... I can, like, occupy myself by doing it instead of feeling the torture." ([16:15]–[16:44])

• The Experiment:

  • Boredom Induction: Students separate beans by color, one by one, for 30 minutes (painfully monotonous) ([17:55]–[19:44]).
  • Control Group: Makes "bean art" (creative task).

• The Creativity Test: Afterward, both groups list as many plausible excuses as possible for being two hours late to a meeting ([20:58]).

  • Wendy’s participation: Comes up with 35 excuses, including "rhinoceros incident" and "UTI" ([21:40]–[22:09]).
  • Sample from study: Someone cited "alien visited my house," another "bird on my face," which led to tangents about reasonable vs. outlandish excuses ([22:27]–[22:59]).

• Results:

  • Boredom group produced more unique and numerous ideas than the creative art group ([23:22]–[23:38]).
    • Prof. Park: "Boredom actually can increase the creative performance. I was like, oh, okay. Interesting." ([23:38])

• But...

  • Not all studies agree; meta-analyses are inconclusive ([24:14]–[24:36]).
  • Personality Factors: Boredom boosts creativity especially in people high in "need for cognition" and "openness to experience" ([24:36]–[25:12]).

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6. Is Seeking Boredom Really Worth It?

• Rethinking Boredom's Value:
  • While some benefit is found, boredom itself is an unpleasant state—not something to cultivate for its own sake ([25:44]–[26:21]).
    • Prof. Dankert: "They're not talking about boredom at all. What they're talking about is relaxation or disconnection. ... We don't need more boredom. We just need more intentional engagement or intentional disengagement." ([25:44])
  • The desire for "stillness, quiet, peace" is often mistaken for a need for boredom ([28:41]–[29:06]).

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7. Rest vs. Boredom: Letting the Brain Recover

• Science of Rest: Mental rest (not necessarily boredom) after learning improves memory consolidation.
  • Michelle: "Scientists will give people a list of words ... then have them rest afterward ... people who are given time to rest ... have better recall." ([27:12]–[27:58])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|--------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:44 | Michelle Dang | "The problem is we've created a way of living where you do not need to be bored at all." | | 04:56 | Wendy Zuckerman | "So they stuck 10 people into an FMRI machine and proceeded to bore the crap out of them, which isn't hard in an fMRI." | | 06:28 | Prof. J. Dankert | "This is a network of brain areas that is more active when there is no external task for you to do." | | 10:06 | Prof. J. Dankert | "This part of your brain, this network, is trying to say, okay, I've just been bored to death. I gotta find something." | | 11:47 | Wendy Zuckerman | "Almost half of them shocked themselves ... and it wasn't out of curiosity. They knew what the shock was like and they knew they didn't like it." | | 16:15 | Prof. G.H. Park | "Faculty meetings are really boring. ... I can ... occupy myself by doing it instead of feeling the torture." | | 23:38 | Prof. G.H. Park | "Boredom actually can increase the creative performance. I was like, oh, okay. Interesting." | | 25:44 | Prof. J. Dankert | "They're not talking about boredom at all. What they're talking about is relaxation or disconnection." | | 27:58 | Michelle Dang | "Even five to ten minutes of rest can boost your memory in this way." |

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Opening trend: "Raw dogging boredom" | 00:00–01:15 | | Brain on boredom: DMN and fMRI study | 04:41–10:11 | | Boredom as a negative/motivating state | 10:29–11:01 | | The "shock yourself" boredom study | 11:13–12:14 | | Can boredom boost creativity? (Park's bean experiments) | 15:52–24:36 | | Personality and creativity in boredom | 24:36–25:12 | | Reframing: relaxation vs. boredom | 25:44–26:21 | | The role of rest in memory/learning | 27:12–27:58 | | Episode recap and final thoughts | 28:41–29:23 |

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Episode Takeaways

• Boredom is hard to avoid in a digital world—but your brain doesn’t like it.
• In the brain, boredom activates the “default mode network” (DMN), linked to mind-wandering, but isn’t always positive (can prompt rumination).
• The insular cortex "lies in wait" for something interesting—boredom makes us seek escape.
• Boredom can motivate creative thinking—but the effect varies based on your personality.
• You don’t need "more boredom" to get benefits like stillness, creativity, or memory consolidation—intentional rest and disconnection are what help.
• Even five to ten minutes of pure rest after new learning helps memory stick.

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Tone:

Conversational, witty, with playful banter and a touch of nerdy humor.

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Conclusion

While the internet touts boredom as a lost superpower for creativity and clarity, the science is more nuanced. Boredom can fuel creative thinking for some, but it's an uncomfortable brain state—not a panacea. If you crave space to think and imagine, you may not need to "raw dog" boredom—just give your mind a little unstructured rest from the "thrust and parry" of modern life. As Wendy summarizes:
"Probably what a lot of us are seeking right now is just stillness, quiet, peace, and get it." ([29:06])

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Transcript

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and this is Science Passes. Today on the show, we're pitting facts against feeling bored. Across the Internet, people are embracing being bored. Raw dogging boredom for one hour. Raw dogging one hour straight. No phone, no tv, no music, no moving, no sleeping for an hour straight. That's right. They're raw dogging boredom. There's all these videos of people recording themselves sitting on the floor of their bedroom doing basically nothing, in some cases for hours. And why are they doing this? Raw dogging boredom.

[Michelle Dang]

The problem is we've created a way of living where you do not need

[Wendy Zuckerman]

to be bored at all.

[Michelle Dang]

And the second you feel bored, you grab your phone.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Like people like to say, oh, I, I just can't be bored. I'm the type of person who always

[Professor James Dankert]

has to be doing something right. That's justifying the addiction.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Influencers are telling us that we need to push back against this addiction and embrace boredom like a lost art. They say that being bored is actually good for us and it could inspire us to be more imaginative and creative.

[Michelle Dang]

We kind of treat boredom as if it's something to fix. But what if I tell you that boredom is actually the starting point of creativity? Einstein and Newton got their biggest ideas

[Wendy Zuckerman]

when they were bored and doing nothing. So would we all be Einstein's if we just raw dogged some boredom today on the show? The power of being bored. What exactly is going on in our brains when we're bored? And could we really supercharge our minds if we just embraced a bit of boredom? When it comes to boredom, there's a lot of. And then there's science. Science Versus Boredom will be coming up just after the break. This episode of Science Versus is presented by Amazon Health AI. Guys, we gotta talk about your secret late night Internet searches. You know the ones. Bumpy leg rash, hair loss, itchy bum. Trying to figure out your body by endlessly searching for answers. We all do it. But does it always work? Well, you could try Amazon Health AI. It can connect your symptoms with your medical history to offer personalized care 24. 7. So call off the search. Amazon Health AI is here. Healthcare just got less painful. Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn [e-mail] studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc. Welcome back. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Today we are digging into the science on boredom. And to tell me all about it, here's producer Michelle Dang.

[Michelle Dang]

Hey, Wendy.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Hello, Michelle. How do you feel about your boredom levels? Are you bored right now?

[Michelle Dang]

No, I'm never bored when I'm talking to you.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah.

[Michelle Dang]

So when I hear people online talking about this, I do find myself nodding along because, I don't know, I don't feel that bored anymore. But I am one of those people who are always picking up my phone to look at something.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

So.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah.

[Michelle Dang]

How do you feel? Have you been bored lately?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I do worry that by constantly shoving things in my brain, you know, whether that's work. Mindless scrolling. Sometimes it does feel like you're literally just jamming your brain full of things, just this constant stimulation. And sometimes it really does feel like my brain is just saying, no, I'm too full right now. And it just wants to go and just be empty. And I don't let it be bored and empty. So I'm very excited to know what is going on in my brain. That is that feeling of just be still.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, I wanted to know about that too. So we're going to dig into your brain on boredom. And to start, I talked to a cognitive neuroscientist named Professor James Dankert from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Great.

[Michelle Dang]

And James and a colleague actually did a study looking exactly at this, the brain on boredom. So let me tell you about what they did. So they stuck 10 people into an FMRI machine and proceeded to bore the

[Wendy Zuckerman]

crap out of them, which isn't hard in an fmri. It's a boring space.

[Michelle Dang]

That's true. But this is like a little step further. So listen to this.

[Professor James Dankert]

Okay, so to do that, we had them watch an eight minute video of two guys hanging laundry. That's really quite effective at making people. Bo,

[Michelle Dang]

do you want to see pictures of what it looked like?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, sure. Oh.

[Michelle Dang]

Oh, my God.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

That video. That screenshot of the video of two guys doing laundry. I don't know why, but it looks even more boring than I had imagined. I think because I was picturing the guys outside doing laundry on a sunny day, but actually they're just inside a house. They look so bored.

[Michelle Dang]

It's like a beige room.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, yeah. I would hate that.

[Michelle Dang]

And this was like a four minute clip that was on loop. They got to watch it twice inside the machine and then they had Their brains do other stuff too. For example, they had the participants watch an interesting video instead. It was A clip from BBC's Planet Earth actually, with, you know, beautiful landscapes, music, a sea turtle, all that jazz.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes, yes, I've seen it. It's incredibly interesting. Yes.

[Michelle Dang]

And then James and his colleague, they looked at all the brains in these different states to see what was going on. And what James noticed when people were bored were changes in a couple of systems in the brain. So let me start with this particular one that was all lit up. It's known as the default mode network.

[Professor James Dankert]

And this is a network of brain areas that is more active when there is no external task for you to do. So people will also call it an off task network. It's active in things like daydreaming or mind wandering. It's active when you sort of prospectively think about the future.

[Michelle Dang]

Have you heard about the default mode network before?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because I guess I associate boredom with thinking of nothing. But you're right, it's more when you've got. When you're just watching guys doing laundry, your mind just wanders into its default state.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, exactly. Here's James.

[Professor James Dankert]

It just turned out that video was so mind numbingly dull that they disengaged from it and activated this default network.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And then what happened to the brains in the group that got to watch that interesting video with the turtles and planet Earth?

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, so in that group it looked like the DMN was less active. So they didn't see the same pattern. Probably because there was a bunch of great stuff to focus on in that clip.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Aha, that makes sense. So does it matter whether the default mode network is on or off?

[Michelle Dang]

Well, the people online love to clamor about the dmn. Uh huh. They say it's a really important system in our brain. And that part is true. We know that the DMN plays a role in our sense of self. Like it's active when we self reflect, when we think about the past or the future, or when we process our emotions. All this stuff happens when we're just resting too.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So is the default mode network always good when it's activated? Because I feel like sometimes when my mind wanders it just goes back to these kind of negative thoughts, often revolving around the theme of you're not good enough in some way.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, so this is the flip side of this. It doesn't make sense to claim that activating the DMN is always good and that we should just be, you know, sitting In a room, shutting everything out for hours at a time.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Right.

[Michelle Dang]

For example, an overactive DMN can be linked to things like ruminating and negative thoughts. And of course, we know that we don't always think good thoughts when our mind is wandering.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes, of course. Right. Yeah. You start watching this video about laundry, you get bored. Who knows where your mind is going to go when it taps into this default mode network. Interesting. What else did James find in this study?

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, so while James saw the DMN perk up when people were bored, he also noticed this other part of the brain that showed less activity. It's called the insular cortex, and it's part of something called the salience network.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I associate the insular cortex with understanding what's happening in our own body. Feeling pain.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, yeah. And it also, like, plays a role in figuring out what's out there, like, in our environment versus what. What we're feeling inside and then what to do with it. Like James was saying, it basically helps us choose what's most important at that moment to pay attention to.

[Professor James Dankert]

Was saying there's really nothing interesting here for you to look at. Nothing that would. Would help you pursue a goal.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, and during boredom, that part of the brain dialed down.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, exactly. So it dialed down, but it's also almost lying in wait for ways to escape the boredom. Because we know from other research that this part of the brain lights up and gets more active when people are given the opportunity to escape the boredom, like when they're presented something that's actually interesting for them to do. So James says that this insular cortex,

[Professor James Dankert]

this part of your brain, this network, is trying to say, okay, I've just been bored to death. I gotta find something.

[Michelle Dang]

And so here's where we're going with this.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Here's the punchline. Yeah, before my insular cortex completely switches off. Michelle, let's get to the punchline.

[Michelle Dang]

So the idea here is that your brain is signaling you to find whatever you can to escape the monotony of boredom.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Okay.

[Michelle Dang]

Because, Wendy, like, our brains do not like being bored. And scientists actually define boredom as a negative thing. Like a negative state of mind.

[Professor James Dankert]

When we're bored, we want something that matters to us, but we don't want anything that's currently available to us. And so that's why boredom is a sort of. It's a motivating emotion because it's calling you to find that thing that's going to work. But it's also an agitated, sort of restless feeling, because clearly, if you're Bored, you're not satisfying that desire to be engaged.

[Michelle Dang]

And you know, some people will go to huge lengths to avoid boredom. Like there's this famous study where scientists looked at whether people would rather shock themselves than sit around being bored in a room.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes, I have heard of this study, but what? I never read it though. What did they actually do?

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, it's pretty fun. So the researchers had these people sit in a room with nothing to do for 15 minutes. And they had electrodes on their ankles which were connected to a button they could press to activate this shock. And when people tested out the shock, guess what? Most of them said the shock sucked and they didn't like it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes.

[Michelle Dang]

However, these same people who didn't like it, 40% of them shocked themselves at least once when they got into the room.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

40% within 15 minutes. Of being bored?

[Michelle Dang]

Yes.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Of sitting in an empty room. Almost half of them shocked themselves. And it wasn't out of curiosity. They knew what the shock was like and they knew they didn't like it.

[Professor James Dankert]

Right.

[Michelle Dang]

And Wendy, there was somebody who shocked himself 190 times that.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I mean, sure, they liked it.

[Michelle Dang]

That person probably.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Okay.

[Michelle Dang]

And other studies have since repeated this, showing that many of us would rather shock ourselves or do something against our own interests when we're bored. Because I guess boredom just sucks more.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I mean, people do. We do crazy things when we're bored. I remember this study from a while ago that asked people to name all the reasons they have sex, and one of them was bored. Which isn't crazy, but I mean, I've had friends who sleep with their exes because they're bored. You know, they'll just text their ex someone they actively do not like. Yeah, because they're bored. Yeah. So then the question is. So we know boredom is a state our brain doesn't like, and we will do things that are bad for us in order to escape the boredom. But should we persevere in that bored state, will it give us some benefit?

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, Wendy, that's my next question. If our brains get bored, could that lead us to the land of creativity?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Exactly.

[Michelle Dang]

That is coming up after the break. Right.

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[Michelle Dang]

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[Wendy Zuckerman]

Welcome back. Today on the show, we're talking about boredom. Is this a state that we should be aspiring to? Michelle Dang, our producer here at Science Versus, is about to tell us whether being bored can actually inspire creativity. So Gannet.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, that is the big claim we're hearing from the Internet people that boredom will unlock and push you into creativity.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes.

[Michelle Dang]

To get some science on this, we need to meet Professor Gi Han park from Korea University. She's an organizational psychologist. And Gi Hun got interested in boredom about a decade ago when she was finding herself stuck in some pretty boring meetings.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

It was usually the faculty meetings are really boring. Nothing that interest me. And it's just passing time, something like that. Very boring tone of voice and monotonous. You cannot escape. Like you just feel stuck.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It's true. It's so true.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, yeah. And Gi Hun would notice something about how she was spending time in these moments. She was Picking up her pen and

[Professor Gi Han Park]

doodling and then writing new ideas. Oh, okay. So planning some new things, new research ideas, blah, blah, blah. I can like, occupy myself by doing it instead of feeling the torture.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, yeah. She's able to switch her brain into a productive state rather than kicking herself in the shins under the table.

[Michelle Dang]

So sometimes she'd use that boring time to work out solutions for problems she was having or finding new ways to do an experiment.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Great.

[Michelle Dang]

And she started wondering, does this happen to everyone? And particularly if we make people bored, can we spark creativity? So what Gi Hun did is she got together this big group of students and to get them bored and see if creativity fell out the other side, she didn't show them a video of dudes doing laundry. She did something a little different. She gave people a huge bowl of beans. And these are beans in two different colors. Told them to sit there and separate the beans out by color. And I'm sure this sounds familiar to you, Wendy, because I asked you to do this experiment too.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes, you.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah. So I asked you to record yourself doing it. So here is a bit of that.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Pour both beans into the largest bowl. Mix them well together. Start a timer for 30 minutes. Sort the beans one at a time by moving all the red beans into your second bowl. Okay, here are my red beans going in. Chickpeas going in. Okay, now I'm going to mix them up. Time starts now.

[Michelle Dang]

And to make it even worse, Gwihan designed it so that you did it

[Professor Gi Han Park]

just one by one, using one hand, so that it's monotonous.

[Michelle Dang]

So Gihan did this with over 50 students in a big hall. And here's what happened.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

So they do engage in one by one. And then after five minutes, you can feel that the entire room was filled with boredom.

[Michelle Dang]

Could you see the boredom on their faces? Oh, yes, yes, yes.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

They. They were really bored. They. They become really slow. You can see their actions getting really slow. And then they were not like they lost their emotions on the face. Right. The numbing, numbing kind of face.

[Michelle Dang]

Wendy, you had that numbing kind of face by the end too, right there. Here's some tape of you if you've forgotten it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Forgot the rule about the just using one hand for a moment. And then I was back to using one hand. Now I'm just kind of throwing them in like playing basketball. Gosh, it feels never ending, though, because they. Am I really gonna separate them completely? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm getting bored just listening back to myself. It's funny, I didn't Know, I didn't know if I was bored, but my mind kept wandering. It kept hitting that default state where I started thinking about other things in my life, and then I. But my hand would keep.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, so that was the boredom arm. And of course, there was a control group, too. Gwihan had another group that she didn't want to be bored, so. So she had them make art with the beans on a white piece of paper for the 30 minutes. So after the 30 minutes of either sorting beans or making bean art was up. Then came the creativity part. Everyone in the experiment had to answer a prompt, which I made you read out loud.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Right. Imagine a hypothetical situation in which person A is two hours late for a work meeting. List all of the feasible and justifiable reasons person A could use to account for being late so that person A would not be perceived negatively by their teammates. There are no right or wrong responses. Please generate as many ideas as possible. Okay, Timer, timer, timer. And five minutes. Let's go. Broken leg, broken arm. I mean, hell, broken ankle, broken neck. I think I want to run here.

[Professor James Dankert]

This.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It feels like cheating. Notes helped older person with the bins, but then they tracked you. Uti. UTI is. Yeah, that's bad. Really big fight with partner. You found out your partner cheated on you, gave birth. Then they should just be happy you came to the meeting at all. Rhinoceros incident. Went at the zoo because you. Yeah, like a rhinoceros maybe pooed on you again.

[Michelle Dang]

Wendy, you came up with a lot of good ideas.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Did I do okay? I always feel like I want to win. Did I win?

[Michelle Dang]

Michelle, compared to the study, I think you went above and beyond with how many you came up with.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Thanks for 35. 35? Yeah. What did other people come up with?

[Michelle Dang]

Oh, yeah, there were some really great responses that they got, too.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

Oh, alien. Alien just visited my house. So I need to deal with him, you know, for a couple of minutes, and then I sent him home.

[Michelle Dang]

Or.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

Oh, birds on my face. So I have to go back home and then change my whole clothing and stuff.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I feel like I was on the someone sh. Ts on you sort of framework.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah. Was it a rhino? Yeah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I feel like me and that person who said that would have really gelled. For a bird on your face, you don't get two hours of leeway. Right. You can clean that off.

[Michelle Dang]

It's a pretty bad day, though.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

It's true.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

On the face, but what were you

[Michelle Dang]

doing at a zoo before work?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Mm, good question. Okay, but then the question is right. Of this whole experiment. Is had I done the creative task, had I instead made an art project out of beans, would I have been even more creative? Or did boredom inspire creativity? What did she find?

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, so when Gi Hun looked at all the data across the groups, she found that, yes, people in the boredom group came out with more unique and creative responses than the people who were making bean art. And just like you, they were also able to come up with a lot more ideas than the art group.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Huh.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

I found a significant finding that boredom actually can increase the creative performance. I was like, oh, okay. Interesting.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

That is interesting. Because what it. It did feel like after sorting the beans for half an hour, my brain was really keen to find something interesting. Oh, and then I could grab onto this new project. Of all the silly excuses I could come up with, it was like.

[Michelle Dang]

It was like roaring. It was like, let me out of here.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It was raw dogging almost.

[Michelle Dang]

Yeah, yeah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So boredom can inspire creativity.

[Michelle Dang]

Well, maybe Other research into this has been a bit mixed. Like, some studies find boredom boosts creativity and others don't. And there was a review that said no clearly negative or positive relationship could be pinpointed between boredom and creativity. End quote.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

What a boring result.

[Michelle Dang]

But we might have an explanation for why it felt like the boredom worked for you and feels helpful to other people too. So Gi Hun did another version of this bean experiment, but this time she also gave them personality tests. And she found that bored people were more likely to be creative if they ranked higher in certain traits. Things like need for cognition and openness to experience.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Need for cognition? Do some people not have a need for cognition?

[Michelle Dang]

I think some people have more of a need for cognition.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Okay, all right. I guess I have a high need for cognition. So what is then? Where do you land on this boredom? We clearly don't like it, but is it good or bad? Should I try to be bored more?

[Michelle Dang]

Well, even though Gi Hun found some potential benefit for creativity overall, it's not clear that boredom is the state that you want your mind to be in. As we talked about it especially doesn't feel great. Here's James again.

[Professor James Dankert]

I've had people before say to me, I don't mind being bored. I like being bored. Boredom's fine. And what you find out when you probe them is that they're not talking about boredom at all. What they're talking about is relaxation or disconnection. They're talking about sort of disengaging from their. From the thrust and parry of their everyday lives, or they're disengaging from social networks or they're disengaging from devices or whatever, and they're doing very little. They're not doing much. And they say, yeah, that's fine. I like it. It's like, well, yeah, okay, that's great. But it's not boredom. We don't need more boredom. We just need more intentional engagement or intentional disengagement.

[Michelle Dang]

Yes.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

From the thrust and parry of life. Yeah.

[Michelle Dang]

Do you like that?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I do. I do.

[Michelle Dang]

Mm. So James says exactly that, like, intentional engagement could be choosing to veg out, it could be choosing to relax.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Right. And that there is this difference. You want a raw dog disconnection from the thrust and parry. You think we could get that as

[Michelle Dang]

a hashtag going, okay, hashtag, raw dog disconnection. Yes.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes.

[Michelle Dang]

Is that right?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes. Apologies for the incredibly 2010 reference at this point.

[Michelle Dang]

But away from that, Wendy, I found some science that shows that there is some benefit to just letting your brain rest, particularly with memory. So letting your brain rest can actually help you remember stuff that you learn.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh.

[Michelle Dang]

So scientists will give people a list of words or a story to remember and then have them rest afterward with nothing to do. Or they'll have them do something mentally engaging, like play a game or scroll social media. And when they quiz them afterward, they found that the people who are giving time to rest after learning actually have better recall.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, that's cool. And feels very relatable.

[Michelle Dang]

And we think this is because when you learn something, your brain creates a new neural pathway. But when you give your brain a chance to rest, it lets that pathway repeat back and forth over and over again and consolidate that information. Even five to ten minutes of rest can boost your memory in this way.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, that is cool. Picturing our brain doing that. It does. It sounds a little bit like meditation.

[Michelle Dang]

Well, in some of the research, they literally just tell people to sit in a chair and relax, which is a bit different to meditation techniques.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

All right, well, let's give our mind. Before we recap the app, let's give our minds a little. A little bit of rest.

[Michelle Dang]

Okay.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Are you getting bored?

[Michelle Dang]

Not yet. Okay.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

No, me neither. What about now?

[Michelle Dang]

I'm good.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

All right, so here's what I've learned about boredom. Michelle?

[Michelle Dang]

Yes.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Please tell me boredom is a state that your brain doesn't like and that you don't have to persevere through in order to get benefits. Probably what a lot of us are seeking right now is just stillness, quiet, peace, and get it.

[Michelle Dang]

Get off. Like the hamster wheel.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Get off the hamster wheel. Raw dog. That state of mind, you meant Raw

[Michelle Dang]

dog disconnection from the Thruston Fairy.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Raw Dog, disconnection from the Thruston Fairy. All right, thanks, Michelle.

[Michelle Dang]

Thank you, Wendy.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

That's Science versus. And if you want to get in touch with us, let us know what you thought of the episode. You can pop a comment if you're listening to this on Spotify or you can find us on Instagram. Sciencevs. I'm on TikTok. Wendy Zook, come and say hello. Before we get to the citations, we have a special segment for you where I answer questions from you guys, our listeners. So here it is. Today's Ask Wendy Anything. Ask Me Anything is brought to you by Amazon Health AI. Amazon Health AI is here to stop the late night Internet help searches. It can connect your symptoms with your medical history to offer personalized care 24 7. So call off the search. Here to ask me some questions is senior producer Rose Rimler. Hey, Rose.

[Michelle Dang]

Hey.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Okay, so someone who goes BY T on TikTok has asked, how do you protect your mental health with science deniers? Ooh, thanks. That sounds like a very caring question. When I am feeling down, it can make me feel quite down. Yeah, I mean, I can really struggle with this. I particularly struggle because I think on this show on Science versus, we work really hard to get the facts out to people. And it's difficult to watch as other voices are louder and talking nonsense but have the appearance of being legitimate. Do you know what I mean? Whether they're wearing a lab coat or using big fancy words, maybe they're even aligned to a fancy university. And yet I still know they're talking rubbish. I really struggle with that. I guess the question is, how do I protect myself? I guess I just focus on what we can do, which is we pump out good information that we trust. And on a good day, I just focus on that.

[Michelle Dang]

Sounds good.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

We got another one from the painting nihilist on Instagram. What was the last movie you watched in the theater and what did you think of it? The Substance with Demi Moore. Memorable movie. Memorable. And it was even more memorable because I watched it on a Monday morning and it was just me and this other guy there in an otherwise completely empty theater. And it's a body horror. The ending is like, ah. And at the end of it, we just looked at each other and were like, oh, okay. Well, have a good Monday then.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

All right.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

You liked it? Yeah, I liked it. I did. It bangs you over the head with its message, but it's a good message nonetheless. It does bang you over the head, but I like how extreme it took it. Yeah, you know, go big or go home. That was today's Ask me anything. And it was brought to you by Amazon Health AI. Amazon Health AI is here. Healthcare just got less painful. All right, Michelle.

[Michelle Dang]

Hello.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

We're back. How many citations were in this week's episode?

[Michelle Dang]

There are 36 citations.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And if people want to see them in all their glory, learn more about the science of boredom. Where should they go?

[Michelle Dang]

Just head over to our show notes and click on the transcript. All right, cool.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Thanks, Michelle. Bye.

[Michelle Dang]

Bye, Wendy. Thanks.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

This episode was produced by Michelle Dang with help from Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler and Aketty Foster.

[Professor Gi Han Park]

Keys.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I'm the executive producer. We're edited by Blythe Terrell, Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bobby Lord, Boomi Hidaka so Wiley, Emma Munger and and Peter Leonard. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell icon if you want to get notifications when new episodes come up. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next week.