Doing nothing: the benefits of boredom

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Doing nothing: the benefits of boredom”

Podcast: What's That Rash?
Host: ABC News
Episode Date: February 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the value and science behind “doing nothing,” investigating whether staring into space or allowing the mind to wander is beneficial for brain health, creativity, and memory. Prompted by a listener’s question about replacing phone time with true downtime, the hosts examine the neuroscience of mind-wandering, the risks and benefits of unstructured thought, and give practical advice on how to create these moments in daily life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining “Doing Nothing”

• The concept of doing nothing is more complex than it sounds; true “nothing” is hard to define scientifically.
• Sleeping is not “nothing”—the episode focuses on conscious wakeful periods (e.g., staring into space).

“If we truly did nothing at all, we would die.”
— (A, 03:03)

• Research suggests that when we’re at rest (not actively focused on a task), our brains enter a distinctive, active state called the “default mode network” (DMN).

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2. The Default Mode Network: Your Brain’s Idle Engine

• When participants in studies are instructed to do nothing (e.g., stare at a dot), fMRI scans show the DMN lighting up.
• The DMN allows different brain regions to interact in novel ways, fostering creativity, memory consolidation, and emotional processing.
• DMN activity varies by individual and mental state:
  • Depressed individuals show lower DMN activity (less interconnection).
  • Creative people show more active DMN function.

“When you are doing nothing…your default mode network seems to be at a high level, allowing cross talk between different parts of the brain.”
— (B, 05:10)

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3. Mind Wandering: Mental Time Travel

• During “doing nothing,” minds wander in time: reflecting on the past, contemplating the future.
• The focus of mind-wandering evolves with age:
  • Young adults focus more on the future (self-oriented).
  • With age, thoughts become more about social groups and the past.
• Mind-wandering supports memory consolidation and retrieval.

"It sometimes wanders to embarrassing moments that might have been 20 years ago... It’s thought to be an extremely healthy part of brain development and brain maintenance."
— (B, 09:12)

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4. Doing Nothing vs. Mindfulness Meditation

• Mind-wandering is not mindfulness meditation, though both may seem similar.
• Mindfulness is a deliberate practice, often with therapeutic aims, and may require guidance—especially for people with negative or intrusive thoughts.
• Downtime for the brain is unstructured and taskless, without an imposed agenda.

“Don’t confuse the two. Not to criticize it… but this is something different that’s going on.”
— (B, 09:43)

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5. Boredom, Modern Life, and “Raw Dogging”

• Modern life offers endless opportunities to avoid boredom (e.g., phones, music, podcasts).
• “Raw dogging” flights = enduring them without entertainment as a way to ‘tough it out’ with unfiltered thought.
• Despite constant stimulation, people may be more bored than ever and uncomfortable with it.

“There’s a little bit of research… suggesting that we're more bored now, despite all these things that we're doing, than we have been in the past.”
— (B, 15:46)

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6. Benefits of Boredom and Mind Wandering

• Problem-solving: letting the mind wander can lead to creative solutions.
• Supports memory formation and integration.
• Encourages brain plasticity—especially important with aging.
• Even very brief periods (minutes) are likely sufficient for these benefits.

“Minutes, it’s not hours and hours of each day.”
— (B, 18:55)

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7. Not Everyone Enjoys Doing Nothing

• A study found that people may dislike being alone with their thoughts:
  • Many (especially men) preferred delivering themselves mild electric shocks over spending 15 minutes alone with their thoughts.
  • 67% of men and 25% of women volunteered for shocks; one man self-administered 190 shocks in 15 minutes.

“One person chose an electric shock every four seconds over being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes.”
— (A, 13:09)

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8. Creating Space for Mind-Wandering

• Doing nothing doesn’t mean sitting still:
  • Walking without headphones, performing light chores, pottering around the house—can all create conditions for beneficial mind-wandering.
• Avoid turning downtime into another “productivity hack”—over-optimization can be counterproductive.

“Maybe that’s the way to start as well… Go, this is cool. This is actually good for me. Chill out and sort of let it take you when the mood strikes.”
— (A, 19:23)

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9. How Often and How Long to Do Nothing?

• No precise prescription—akin to exercise, any amount is better than none.
• Moments (a few minutes at a time) are likely enough—do it whenever you can.
• Try not to feel guilty or unproductive during these intervals.

“Probably a bit like exercise. It's whenever you can do it.”
— (B, 19:11)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Definition of doing nothing:
  “It's quite literally by definition nothing that we're trying to grab here.”
  — (A, 03:55)

• On modern distractions:
  “We use every moment of time… going for a walk, we'll put the headphones in… You go to the gym, you're listening…”
  — (B, 15:32)

• On letting yourself do nothing:
  “Since I've actually read the literature on this, I just feel less guilty about those moments where my mind wanders.”
  — (B, 19:14)

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Suggestions for Practice (Pragmatic Tips)

• Replace some phone or media time with brief periods of quiet mind-wandering.
• Allow your mind to drift during simple, repetitive tasks (folding laundry, walking, sitting quietly).
• Don’t force it or try to engineer it as a task; let it happen naturally.
• Notice if your memory or problem-solving improves after these unstructured periods.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Defining “doing nothing” & the DMN: 03:03 – 06:23
• Mind-wandering and mental time travel: 06:38 – 09:19
• Real-life analogs & mind-wandering vs. mindfulness: 09:37 – 10:47
• The discomfort of doing nothing (shock study): 11:36 – 13:09
• Boredom, modern life, “raw dogging”: 14:10 – 15:46
• Benefits of doing nothing: 16:26 – 17:30
• Practical suggestions: 17:30 – 19:37

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Memorable Moments

• The electric shock study (13:01–13:16): Hilarious and telling about discomfort with idleness.
• Hosts joke about productivity and “raw dogging” (15:01–15:46): Adds levity to brain science.
• Listeners’ cod liver oil memories (20:29–21:50): A fun segue into audience engagement.

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Episode Takeaway

Giving yourself moments of idle mind-wandering isn't just "doing nothing"—it's part of a healthy, creative, and adaptive brain. Rather than viewing downtime as wasted, see it as brain maintenance, and allow yourself a few minutes daily, guilt-free.

“This has been a very good chat and makes me feel very, very good about not doing very much at all.”
— (A, 18:31)

Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Peloton Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training Tread plus, powered by Peloton iq. With real time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push and go. Explore the new peloton cross training tread [e-mail] ABC Listen podcasts, radio, news, music and More Global roaming is expanding to weekdays.

[B]

We did try to stay weekly. The news said no, so five days a week it is.

[A]

It's serious reporting on global events. Plus you're invited for a daily radio coffee table chat with me, Geraldine Doo.

[B]

And with me Hamish MacDonald and in 2026, Latika Burke and Kylie Morris.

[A]

Together we'll explore the global forces reshaping our world in mostly calm conversation.

[B]

Calm Geraldine Global Roaming Search for global roaming on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. Tegan, you seem very busy these days. Hard to pin you down. Managed to pin you down for a little while when we watch this ratchet, but you're extremely busy.

[A]

I do like that we have a scheduled catch up at least once a week because of this show.

[B]

Do you ever do nothing?

[A]

I actually do. I really like doing nothing. Well, I guess it depends on what your idea of doing nothing. But yeah, I do like a little bit of staring into the middle distance.

[B]

Right.

[A]

How about you?

[B]

Yeah, I probably do nothing too often.

[A]

I find that so hard to believe. You've got podcasts coming out the wazoo. You do all of your other extracurricular stuff. You're a grandparent, you're a partner, you ride your bike, you're riding books. How where on earth would you find time to fit in doing nothing?

[B]

It's. It's just in the moments before I do those things, you know, I'm staring into space trying to motivate myself. Anyway, doing nothing is actually the topic of this week's what's that Rash?

[A]

It's the show where we answer the health questions that everyone is asking. This week's question comes from Thomas, who says, I have been curious of late. How beneficial is doing nothing this is, especially after I'm starting back at school. Most days after school I'll go on my phone for an hour because I feel too tired to do anything else. My mind feels like it turns to mush after and I find it harder to do homework later in the evening. Evening, Thomas says. I've tried replacing going on my phone with doing nothing a few times in the past, but I haven't noticed much difference. Probably because I still went on my phone after. I was wondering, Thomas continues, if there were any benefits to doing nothing, both short and long term, and if there are, how long should you do nothing for? How often would you need to do nothing to see any potential benefits? And are there any best times of the day to do nothing? I love this question for lots of reasons, not least of which is that Thomas, I take from context, is probably a teenage boy and that he's looking for excuses, scientifically backed excuses to do nothing. I appreciate this very much indeed.

[B]

You know, Thomas has already tweaked to the fact that being on your phone is not doing nothing.

[A]

Right. Which I want to get into, I guess the best place to start. Well, we often start here, but I think today it's especially important. I like to start with a definition, because how do we study this unless we know it? Like, what is doing nothing? If we truly did nothing at all, we would die.

[B]

So some people would argue that sleeping is doing nothing, but in fact, that's not what Thomas is talking about. Thomas is not talking about sleeping. He's talking about literally doing nothing. And the research suggests strongly that there is no such thing as doing nothing and that doing nothing is actually a very important moment in your life and very important to how your brain functions. Now, not everybody does nothing, but if you were to do nothing, well, we're trying to grab something kind of ephemeral.

[A]

There, but it's quite literally by definition nothing that we're trying to grab here.

[B]

But when we start talking about doing nothing, you'll see what I mean about doing nothing.

[A]

I feel like both of us are sort of like the excitement in our voices is indicating the fact that there's actually so many facets to this and I can't wait to dig into all of them all at once. But we do need to start from. From somewhere. I do think it's worth talking about what I think you're hinting at, which is something we Talked about on WhatsApp rash before, which is the way that our brain doesn't switch off, but switches on when we're seemingly at rest.

[B]

Yeah. So most of the research in doing nothing has actually stretched over the last 30 odd years and it comes from functional brain scanning. So if you want to know if you put somebody in what's called a functional MRI machine and you want to know, well, I'm going to get you to PA a scene or what have You. And they want to know which parts of your brain are active when you're doing that creative act. You've got to have a control, which is what's happening when your brain's not doing that. So you can see which part of the brain's lighting up. So when they started doing this research, and here's the key in the scan, they were not told to do nothing. They were given a cross on the image.

[A]

So you just like stare at a.

[B]

Point, stare at a point. You're not asked to meditate or do mindfulness or anything like that. Just stare at that point. And that act of staring across was their control. And they assumed then the brain, as you said, would go quiet. But in fact, parts of the brain they'd never seen light up, lit up. So the brain became very active. And what's evolved over the last 30 years is more and more detailed knowledge about this series of networks in the brain, which goes by the name of the default mode network. In other words, it's what your brain defaults to when you're given either a very simple task or you're not asked to do anything, and you're just staring into space at one point. And this default mode network lights up and allows parts of the brain to communicate with each other which might not normally communicate with each other. And they find that people have different levels of their default mode network. So if you are depressed, your default mode network is depressed as well. So in other words, when you are doing nothing, not a lot of brain activity is going on where if you are a creative person, in fact, your default mode network seems to be at a high level, allowing cross talk between different parts of the brain.

[A]

So this downtime, in a similar way to the way that we know that sleep is really important for kind of reorganising our memories, this awake downtime is an important part of letting different parts of the brain talk to each other.

[B]

And you know when it's happening because your mind wanders.

[A]

Where does your mind wander when you're kind of in your default mode?

[B]

I'll take the fifth on that one. Well, here is where your brain wanders. And a lot of this research is actually done in Australia. Where the brain wanders is sometimes into what's called mental time travel.

[A]

Yes, that's definitely where my brain goes.

[B]

You start thinking about where you are now, where you've been in the past, and thinking about the future, and it changes according to your age. So when you're Thomas's age and you.

[A]

Are, we're assuming we're assuming that Thomas is a school aged person, let's assume he is young.

[B]

Let's assume he's between 18 and 24, which is where a lot of the benchmarking occurs. This area probably wrongly. So when you're young and you look at mental time travel where the mind wanders because you don't have much of a past, most of your mental time travel is about where I'm at now and where I'm going to in the future. And you think a lot about the future, think a lot about yourself. It's very self centered. There has been a lack of research into what happens with mind wandering and mental time travel when you're in midlife because neuroscientists have not been very good at studying midlife.

[A]

I would say part of the reason is that people in midlife often don't have a lot of time to sit around staring at the wall like we're. So I'm speaking about my own cohort, people in their 40s. You're scheduled to the hilt.

[B]

But they haven't even got them into the lab to study them because they.

[A]

Don'T have time to go to the lab. Norman. They're picking up their kids and they're taking care of their elderly parents.

[B]

Which is could be why when they start to define midlife. A lot of neuroscientists define midlife as the people in their 60s rather than people in their 40s and 50s. So we don't really know fully what happens in midlife. But what happens is there's a transition through life and mental time travel starts to be more group focused. You think of yourself more in the context of your family and your social circumstance. The older you are, the less you think about the future. In fact, you can get quite anxious about thinking about the future. And the more you set yourself in the past and what this does probably at all ages is help to consolidate memories in the brain and it also can help to recover memories in the brain. So when you ask me, well, where does my mind wanders? It sometimes wanders to embarrassing moments that might have been 20 years ago. And I think to myself, ah, did I really do that? Did I really say that? Surely not. But that's what happens when your mind wanders. And it's thought to be an extremely healthy part of brain development and brain maintenance.

[A]

So we've got mind wandering going forwards and backwards in time. Good for our memory. That sounds like a positive from doing nothing. What in these studies at least, people are like looking at an X on the top of a functional MRI machine. Like, I'm not usually lying around a functional MRI machine.

[B]

No, you're not.

[A]

That's not where I spend a lot of my time. Where do we sort of find analogous settings in real life?

[B]

Well, people liken this to mindfulness meditation. And the researchers I've spoken to who research mental time travel, mind wandering, the default mode network, say, don't confuse the two. Not to criticize it, there are significant advantages to mindfulness meditation. But this is something different that's going on. And probably for most people, it's just staring into space. You might be looking at a blank television set or just staring at something in the dining room. And in many ways, it doesn't matter what you're looking at. It's that you're in that mode when your mind wanders.

[A]

So it's sort of become a bit romanticized in the last few years, this idea of doing nothing. And I think it's a bit of a backlash to the sort of thing that we're hearing Thomas talking about here. Thomas is like, I come home, I'm exhausted. I spend time on my phone, and I feel even worse afterwards. And then I don't have the energy to do the thing I need to do next, which is my homework. And I feel like I've heard this idea of going back to doing nothing and turning it into a productivity tool, which. Which becomes then something that has a purpose attached to it, which sort of feels like it defeats the idea of allowing yourself the space to do nothing.

[B]

When there's a purpose attached to it. I'd hazard a guess that the default mode network is not going to be activated and you're going to be activating another part of your brain which is not creating. So this is related to brain plasticity as well, by the way. So the default mode network, activating and allowing parts of the brain to talk to each other is also thought to, particularly as you get older, to encourage brain plasticity and new networks to develop. And some people talk about this as scaffolding your brain to adapt better to the years passing by. So in Thomas's case, well, if he's knackered, maybe he should just go to bed for half an hour and have a nap. But also if he wants to do nothing, then just sitting down and staring into space and letting his mind wander. And he might find that the memory of the day's lessons are better laid down.

[A]

Like on a scale of 1 to 10 for you, if you were sort of told to sit in a room and Be alone with your thoughts. Like how if one is like, very, very unpleasant and 10 is the best thing you've ever done in your life, where would that kind of sit on the spectrum for you?

[B]

About six or seven.

[A]

Six or seven? Like you're fine with it and it's like 15 minutes. That's all I'm asking of you. Six or seven?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, cool. So I'd probably be about the same 15 minutes sitting alone in a room. Very happy to do that. Not so everyone. So there was one study that I was looking into where people were basically alone with their thoughts, and then they were given different stimuli, including being electric shocked during the first mess, the first encouraging period of being alone with their thoughts. And then they were given the option of like, you can pay to not have this negative stimuli again. They're like, yes, please, I will pay for you to not to shock me again. And then they were put back in the room with their thoughts again. And of the people who said, yes, I will pay for you to not shock me again when they were put back in the room alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes, 2/3 of men gave themselves at least one shock during the thinking period. 2/3 of the men who said, yes, please never shock me again. I'll pay you money for you to not shock me, chose to shock themselves during this 15 minute period. Men were much more likely to do this than the women. 67% of men.

[B]

So what was the explanation?

[A]

25% of women. I haven't finished yet, Norman.

[B]

I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

[A]

One participant chose to shock himself during a 15 minute period 190 times.

[B]

Gosh.

[A]

One person chose an electric shock every four seconds over being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes.

[B]

Well, let's move away from doing nothing to mindfulness meditation. Is that if mindfulness meditation is to be therapeutic, you actually should be doing it with a therapist.

[A]

So you're saying that being alone with your thoughts can actually be harmful sometimes.

[B]

For some people, no, but it could be significant. What comes into your mind. This is particularly. I'm moving away now from the. The whole doing nothing thing to a specific activity which is very deliberate, which is mindfulness meditation. It's not that you clear your mind of all thoughts and think about nothing. It's that you become aware of the thoughts that come into your mind. And for some people, those thoughts are negative. And therefore you need an experienced psychologist to talk you through those thoughts, because they could be thoughts that are actually disordering your world and your life. So what comes into your Head is important.

[A]

I'd like to talk about this idea that maybe we have less time to do nothing than we used to. I feel like there's this sort of accepted wisdom that we've got music, podcasts, hello, social media at our fingertips. Kind of in any situation that we find ourselves, we have less need to stare into the middle distance because we're so occupied now. And I feel like it's partly in Thomas's question, is that true? Is it necessarily a bad thing? I've definitely seen people trying to push back against that. Have you heard of. Oh, okay, wait. There are a couple of layers of this that we might need to unpack. Have you heard of people raw dogging flights?

[B]

No.

[A]

Have you heard of raw dogging?

[B]

Raw dogging? No. Raw dog me. What is going on?

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

So I've heard a bad bunny, but not raw dogging. Not raw dog man.

[A]

Okay. Raw dogging originally was unprotected sex. So you can say, oh, okay, okay, fine.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Which has then become kind of been like being in kind of any situation without some sort of, like, layer of protection around you. For example, music in your ears. So people talk about raw dogging flights as a way to sort of show that they can, I don't know, grit their way through something that's an unpleasant experience, alone with their thoughts, even though they have the option of listening to a podcast or listening to music along the way. What do we know about.

[B]

So there is some evidence that we don't have much time where we. We use every moment of time. We're going for a walk, we'll put the headphones in our ears either to listen to music or to listen to your latest podcast. You go to the gym, you're listening to a podcast.

[A]

Please don't stop listening to podcasts.

[B]

Yep. So what some people argue is that what people are trying to escape is boredom, and they're fearing boredom. And there's a little bit of research. It's not great research, but a little bit of research suggesting that we're more bored now, despite all these things that we're doing, than we have been in the past. So despite all this availability of stimulation, we are more bored, and we're also fearful of boarding. It's also the way.

[A]

So being bored is a skill, is that what you're saying?

[B]

Being bored is not necessarily a skill, but it's an experience that's actually normal to life. And you can either do something like read a book or go for a walk or program yourself into a period where you're just looking into space.

[A]

So let's talk about some of the benefits of doing nothing. I feel like we've talked about the memory side of things pretty well. This idea of mental time travel, how that can be beneficial if done correctly. You mentioned creating people have a more active default mode network. Does that mean that they naturally have a more active brain? Or is that something that we can perhaps learn that it could boost our creativity to let our brain get into this mode?

[B]

So not necessarily have a more active brain, but when their brain is at rest and remember it's not truly at rest, more parts of their brain are talking to each other and therefore mind wandering. If you extrapolate that to the rest of us, who may be less creative, Mind wandering is an opportunity to solve problems. So we talk about sleep being a time to solve problems, but in fact mind wandering, just letting your mind go might be a problem solving exercise where parts of your brain that would normally not talk to each other do talk to each other and you might find solutions at the end of it. So that's another advantage which comes from that sort of creativity study.

[A]

I think it'd be nice to talk about how to find this state because we're not just all going to be lying down looking into the middle distance. I find for me, letting my mind wander comes often with wandering. That sort of idea of if I've been sitting at my desk for too long, I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. My brain is tired. Getting up and walking around the block once I'm not going out for a walk for exercise, I'm just going to clear your head. To clear my head. And sometimes at home that might be pottering around the house, folding some washing, all of these things that in a different state of mind could be a task that I would be concentrating on, but in the right attitude can give me that sense of a wandering mind, that downtime for my brain because I'm not coming at it with a task based perspective.

[B]

So the solution for Thomas is to talk to his mum about the washing. I'm going to fold the washing for you tonight, Mum, before I do my homework. Thomas, are you listening to us?

[A]

So this has been a very good chat and makes me feel very, very good about not doing very much at all. But Norman, it does strike me that it kind of contradicts a lot of the stuff that we said a couple of weeks ago when we're talking about retiring, retirement and how retirement is bad for your brain, bad for your cognition. This idea that having unfocused time and not stimulating your brain and all of those sorts of things is bad for you. Where, please, is the balance?

[B]

Well, the balance is five minutes of mind wandering versus the whole of your life. It's minutes, it's not hours and hours of each day.

[A]

So Thomas's questions were quite specific. How long, how often, and the best time of day to try to do nothing?

[B]

Nobody knows. Probably a bit like exercise. It's whenever you can do it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It's just. It's hard to engineer. But since I've actually read the literature on this, I just feel less guilty about those moments where my mind wanders.

[A]

Maybe that's the way to start as well, rather than trying to optimise everything, which is what it feels like we're all trying to do these days. Go, this is cool. This is actually good for me. Chill out and sort of let it take you when the mood strikes.

[B]

Thomas's solution might be going out for a jog or helping his mum do the washing. I mean, literally, kind of a mindless task which allows you to clear your brain. Just don't put your earpods in.

[A]

When I go for a jog, the only thing that's in my brain is when can I stop? When can I stop? When can I stop?

[B]

I thought you loved your exercise.

[A]

I love exercising. I hate jogging.

[B]

Ah, right. And you might find, Thomas, that your homework's easier once you get down to it.

[A]

Here's hoping. Well, Thomas, thank you so much for the question. If you have a question for us, we love getting into it. In case you can't tell, our email address is thatrashbc.netau of course, that is the same email address where you can send us your questions and your feedback as many of you have done this week on cod liver oil. Norman, you and I spoke at length about how disgusted we were at having to take cod liver oil as kids. There are a couple of people in the mailbag who really enjoyed it.

[B]

Well, there's Brian.

[A]

Brian says, like so many children growing up in the 1950s, my mother doctored my elder sister and me with cod liver oil, sometimes a couple of times a week, particularly over the winter months. Brian says my sister always balked and put on a performance when confronted with a spoon of the oil. I loved cod liver oil, says Brian, and was never put off by the smell or the taste. In fact, I would have readily had two spoons full had a second been on offer.

[B]

Brian was risking hypervitaminosis just to actually get there. And Ann also writes in.

[A]

Yeah, Ann's the same A young child in Canada was delighted at taking cod liver oil as I had a companion consumer and says mum would tap the spoon on the bottle to summon our cat who would come running for her.

[B]

Ration too come a cat and Myla.

[A]

Myla says Norman might be interested to recall that in the UK from 1940.

[B]

I'm not that old thanks Myla from.

[A]

From 1940 all children got free cod liver oil and orange juice concentrate in the 50s Myla says I also remember malt extract used to help counteract the horrible taste of cod liver oil Malt extracts what what Kanga gave Roo in the Winnie the Pooh stories yeah I.

[B]

Actually do remember malt extract and I'm not feeling a bit sick thanks Myla.

[A]

All of the different concoctions parents fed their children well thank you so much for all of your emails we love to get them and we'll catch you again next week.

[B]

Sorry my mind was wondering what did.

[A]

You say there exactly.