The Mindful Survey: Got the Blahs?

Was Harvey Danger right when the band sang “If you’re bored, then you’re boring”?

 

What’s your go-to fidgeting method when you’re bored?

38% say they don’t fidget, as they’re perfectly comfortable to just sit and stare. Another 27% rearrange things arbitrarily, and 27% doodle. 8% bite their fingernails.

Is boredom a good thing  or a bad thing?

42% Say it’s neither good nor bad, and 24% say it’s both good and bad. 15% consider boredom entirely a bad thing, and 12% are ambivalent. Only 9% think boredom is good. Read our feature (in the October issue of Mindful) for a deeper look at boredom.

What form of entertainment do you find most boring?

Well, there aren’t many gamers around here! At 46%, video games are considered by far the most boring form of entertainment among Mindful readers. That’s significantly more than the next most boring form of entertainment, TV (26%), followed by board games (12%), movies (3%), magazines (2%), and books (2%). Another 12% had their own answers to the question. Here are a few of our favorites:

• NASCAR
• Opera
• Politics
• Golf on TV
• Watching grass grow (Note: Is this really a “form of entertainment”?)
• Neurophysics lectures

How long does it take you to  nod off if you’re bored?

49% never nod off from boredom, while it takes 25% just a few minutes to conk out. 22% can hold off for an hour or two before succumbing to bored sleep, and 4% fall asleep right away.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how easily do you get bored?

What do you think of doodling?

65% say it’s a creative release,  while 21% consider doodling a way to relieve tension, and 14% believe it’s something people do for no reason.

How would you describe your experience of boredom?

• “So crushing I want to chew my arm off.”
• “A lost opportunity to be creative but this can be productive when you re- arrange your priorities!”
• “Since I am the most interesting and fun person I know, I am not sure that I have experienced boredom.”
• “Kind of itchy.”
• “One big yawn.”
• “………….”
• “Resistance to nondoing.”
• “Blah!”
• “Extra energy in my body/limbs but numbness in my brain.”

The best thing to do when you’re bored is:

• “Daydream or find something  you enjoy to do.”
• “Go for a walk.”
• “I enjoy puzzles such as sudoku or crosswords.”
• “Chill.”
• “Contact a friend.”
• “Slerp.” (Note: We’re not sure what this means, but it sounds kind of nice.)
• “Read and sip on wine.”
• “Think about something you haven’t had time to think about.”
• “Sit with it and let it drift away.”
• “Write in a journal. There’s always something for you to process.”
• “Still don’t know. Thinking about  it is boring.”
• “Stay off the damn smartphone.”

What’s one hobby you can’t believe you do because it seems so terribly boring?

• Read nonfiction
• Meditate
• Watch documentaries
• Organize stuff
• Listen to my husband go on about his computer issues and how they were solved
• Data entry
• Rearrange the silverware drawer
• Dusting
• Pull weeds
• Watch my chickens

 

This article originally appeared in the October 2016 issue of Mindful magazine.

The post The Mindful Survey: Got the Blahs? appeared first on Mindful.

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