How boredom can lead to the change you desperately seek
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Being bored is something we usually associate with a negative emotion.
We avoid it every chance we get.
Even the brain avoids boredom and would rather do anything, literally anything, including the tasks that you despise to avoid being bored, and therein lies its power that you can harness.
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We live in a world where we are overstimulated by social media, games, and access to so many enticing things at the click of a button and all it takes is a scroll to the next thing if you find the current one less interesting.
You may have come across a trending term online recently called dopamine detox and how some content creators swear by that being the solution to achieving all your goals.
Of course, it is never that simple but it could change how you approach your goals and could improve your attention span.
What even is a dopamine detox and why is that relevant?
Well, I’m glad you asked!
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is responsible for the feeling of pleasure when we achieve something.
This feeling of pleasure before the onset of the internet, social media, and technology that has made everything easier only used to come as a reward when we set out to do something and actually get it done.
This served as a source of motivation to accomplish your task so you could experience that pleasure afterward. This is why dopamine is said to be responsible for motivation and reward.
However, because our lives are so much easier now and we have access to easier sources of that pleasure like social media, for instance, our dopamine receptors are overwhelmed.
Since our brains prefer doing the easier thing, there’s no need to motivate you to tackle a difficult task to get that feeling of pleasure, you can get a lot of it from scrolling through your phone.
Why cook a healthier meal when you can just order takeout on your phone? and on and on it goes.
This makes it harder to do tasks that are quite difficult or require more effort.
This is what dopamine detox tries to correct.
When you are detoxing, you remove completely or limit access to all the things that you do that are easy and pleasurable and distract you from doing the important things that impact your life like learning or working.
This all ties back to boredom, the brain hates boredom so it would rather do anything.
And because you have taken away all the distracting activities, your brain will derive pleasure from doing even the things you considered to be difficult previously.
How to use boredom and dopamine detox to accomplish the things you’ve been putting off for so long.
1. Get rid of your distractions or vices.
You might be reading this and saying to yourself “I wish it were that easy” and your point would be very valid.
but I can assure you it won’t be as difficult as you think it would be.
The hardest day would be the first one but it would get easier from there.
So don’t let that thought convince you not to try.
Our beautiful brains were created to adapt and in no time you would adapt to doing the harder stuff like it was easy.
There is a whole new life that awaits you on the other side when you just allow yourself to get bored when you take away some of the overly stimulating things causing you to live a distracted life.
2. Make your life less digitized
In this period of re-training your brain, You can benefit from making your life less digitalized as much as possible.
It might seem like going backwards but keeping all your digital access might make it really difficult to stick to the new changes you are making.
You can start by simply going back to pen and paper to get some of your work done.
I have seen people swap their smartphones for dumb phones (these are the older analog phones that still have buttons on them like the razor flip phone).
Others I have seen have swapped their laptops for older monitors.
Don’t go extreme to the point where it is unreasonable to get things done and attend to your responsibilities and work.
You’re trying to remove distractions not limit the functionality of your life.
Some great alternatives you can try if you are trying to strip things down but still like the ease of your digital devices is to use E-notebooks like the reMarkable paper tablet or the Boox E-ink tablet.
These are great alternatives for your iPads or Android tablets and still give you the feel of using a notebook.
If you are a student, I highly recommend you give them a try.
3. Pick up new hobbies
Very important in re-training your brain is to create new routines and experiences that don’t involve a screen.
A good example of such would be to get a hobby like learning a musical instrument, learning to dance, learning to draw or paint, learning to cook new types of dishes, etc.
Introducing a new hobby can be a good way to break the cycle of your current habits.
4. Allow your mind to wander
Most of the time we fill every moment of our day with one distracting activity or the other that we don’t allow ourselves to think and be creative.
We don’t give ourselves the opportunity to teach ourselves and to learn from our surroundings.
So many amazing things we enjoy today were created from ideas people had when they let their minds wander.
There is so much creativity in you, there are so many solutions you can come up with if you just take a break from constantly feeding your brain information and just let it breathe.
Our brains also consolidate the information we learn when we take a break from what we are learning and allow our minds to wander for a bit.
5. It’s okay if it feels mundane initially
When you start this journey of change, everything is going to seem mundane but stick to it and it won’t be so for long.
Eventually, you will realize that every moment of life doesn’t have to be stimulating because it waters down the effect of the important things you should find stimulating.
Conclusion
There you have it!
You have made it to the end of this post on how boredom can lead to the change that you desperately seek.
Are you unhappy with the way your life is and know you desperately need a change but are struggling to implement it in your life?
This simple action of embracing boredom and using it to change the way you live life will give you results you never thought possible.
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