Silke Ohlmeier: Boredom as a wake-up call

BRIGITTE: Wow, I just had to file articles for hours, that was incredibly boring. Is underchallenging just as stressful as overchallenging?

SILKE OHLMEIER: It’s just as bad. Boredom is, at its core, a form of stress associated with restlessness. That’s why it feels just as torturous as excessive stress.

Still, we much prefer to talk about having too much to do than not enough. Why is that?

I am always fascinated by the strong negative emotions with which people react to boredom – especially in contexts such as motherhood, work or leisure time. Boredom is often equated with laziness, have nothing to do, and that is frowned upon. To say I’m stressed, I’m on the verge of burnout, fits better with the ideals of our performance and entertainment society.

Actually a paradox: At the same time, working mothers in particular often long to be really bored again …

What most people mean by this is: I long for doing less, doing nothing, or relaxation. Boredom, on the other hand, is “an uncomfortable feeling of wanting to do something satisfying but not being able to,” as defined by boredom researcher John Eastwood. after one uncomfortable feeling you rarely long for it.

Is boredom always bad?

There’s a mild form of boredom that’s really nice: you’re relaxed, you don’t have plans, it’s comfortable, even if you’re vaguely bored. But you can still enjoy them – and that’s quite relaxing. There is also the situational boredom, for example when I’m stuck in traffic. It’s not beautiful, but it doesn’t have any negative effects either, because it’s temporary and part of life. And then there’s chronic or existential boredom, which means I’m bored in a whole area of ​​my life—parenting, being in a relationship, working, retiring. Studies show that it is associated with significant negative consequences: alcohol consumption, drug or gambling addiction, loneliness, eating disorders, depression. Boredom can give the positive impulse to change your situation. If this doesn’t happen, it is destructive and creates hypostresswhich means the body no longer generates enough energy to cope with the situation.

As a mother, it’s hard to admit that playing with Lego bricks is boring…

Then it becomes a double suffering: from boredom itself and from the stigma. There’s something wrong with me, I can’t feel like this; I was expecting, I’m going to have a child and I’m happy. As a mother, it’s very difficult to admit that I’m bored. There are many mothers who feel this way. However, they often feel quite alone with their problem.

So should boredom get out of the taboo zone?

Chronic boredom is something negative, sure, but we need a more relaxed approach with it. That’s why it’s important, especially in transitional situations such as maternity, retirement, or unemployment, to be allowed to be bored and to be able to talk about it openly. Then you can find a better way to deal with it.

I can free myself from my job, but not from motherhood.

Boredom has a lot to do with privilege, it’s political. For some people, getting out of a boring job is not that easy. If you look at the issue of motherhood, part of the problem is that we live in a society where women are primarily responsible for care work and often spend a year at home. Then there is the fact that women often earn less than men. There are few daycare places. If the care work were distributed more equally between the partners and there were more childcare offers, there would also be more ways to deal with it. That would solve the problem because it would allow more self-determined time for mothers. It would not be a solution to do another mother-child course.

But that’s what a lot of people do: even more activity to distract themselves and just not to get bored.

True. That’s why it’s important to be aware of the difference: What do I really like doing? And what is just a distraction from the boredom that keeps me in the situation? To see where there are adjustment screws, what can I change. Is there, for example, an ideal of good motherhood behind it that I can deal with critically? Can’t I be a good mother even though I’m angry and bored sometimes? But not all situations can be solved, and that’s where it helps to release the feeling, so that people can talk openly about their boredom and feel understood. A lot is solved with acceptance.

I also notice that I am constantly distracted: when I come home from work stressed, I frantically tidy up, scroll through social networks. The cell phone invites you to do so.

Yes, that’s difficult. If you’re chronically bored – that is, bored from your relationship or work – then it doesn’t help to constantly pull out your cell phone or watch a series. For me it’s like this: When my son is in bed at night and I can finally do what I want, I’m often exhausted and bored. Boredom is always a concentration problem. Then I can no longer concentrate on a book, I’m on Instagram and go to bed bored. On my good days, however, I notice that boredom is a result of exhaustion and I don’t have to add more activity to it, but that it’s about getting back into a more passive mode and relaxing. And that’s where it helps me to do yoga, take a bath, listen to music. If things go well, I can calm down and maybe read a book after all.

Have we forgotten how to recover?

When I look at myself, I already notice and also observe it in my environment that it is difficult to get out of the stress and not to constantly correspond to the ideal of being active. The narrative that we always have to do something to have a good time keeps our hamster wheel going. Boredom is not relaxation, but we may have to put up with it in order to lead a less planned life. You might get bored, but you also have the chance to ask yourself what do I actually need right now. Doing nothing is not boring, but relaxation is not the same as doing nothing. I often notice that I oscillate between the poles of “too much” and “too little”, but then I don’t relax on the sofa either. It’s about looking at what I want to contribute to, but at the same time achieving a balance between activity and passivity. How you find relaxation is then individual – whether you go for a walk alone or read a book.

Are you bored differently today?

I have understood that boredom is often a concentration problem and arises from exhaustion for me and then it doesn’t have to be “more” but “less” to solve it. When I’m bored as a mother, I don’t try to look for more employment, but rather find a babysitter or negotiate time with my husband differently. And yet I get bored from time to time, especially in the evenings when I can’t bring myself to do anything – and that’s okay.

So boredom as a kind of wake-up call to take a closer look at what I actually need?

Exactly. It’s not about avoiding boredom all the time, but looking at the situation: What do I need. But also to accept that the need to want to do something satisfying can compete with other needs – certainly, for example. Security is a source of boredom. Someone who is a civil servant, late 50s, and finds his job boring – should he really quit? Not necessarily.

Rather?

You can give the situation a different meaning. Boredom is particularly nagging when the goal is happiness maximization. But I can also say that my goal is not as much fulfillment as possible at work, but to enable my family to have a good standard of living. And that’s more important right now. At least that helps a little.

Bridget