034 be bored

Boredom is often seen as a problem to fix. We get uncomfortable the moment it creeps in, reaching for curated content, endless notifications, and apps that promise to keep our minds constantly occupied. Somewhere along the way, we internalized the idea that stillness was a problem, and that a life worth living should always be optimized, posted, or at the very least, productive.

What if boredom isn’t something to escape, but something to explore?

As a therapist, I’ve come to see boredom not as a failure of stimulation, but as an invitation. It is one of the few moments in modern life that gently, and sometimes not so gently, asks us to come home to ourselves.

Of course, boredom can feel unbearable. Sitting still, even briefly, often triggers a low hum of anxiety. Think about the quiet panic when you forget your headphones on a walk or leave your phone in the car. The silence is no longer peaceful, it’s confronting. Suddenly, you’re left alone with your own mind, outside the curated safety of content and distraction.

From a psychological lens, boredom serves an important purpose. It creates space for emotional processing, imagination, and self-awareness. But over time, we’ve trained ourselves to resist it. Children and adults alike now struggle to be unoccupied, as if stillness has become synonymous with inadequacy. The moment we feel even a flicker of boredom, we reach, almost automatically, for anything that will pull us away from the present.

It’s not surprising. We live in a culture that rewards overextension and constant stimulation. If we’re not producing or consuming, we begin to question our value. Stillness feels foreign, maybe even unsafe. But here’s what I’ve learned in the therapy room: boredom is not the enemy.

But boredom isn’t bad. In fact, it’s good for us.

Boredom creates space. It gives us space to listen inward, to tune into our thoughts, our patterns, our habits of avoidance. It’s often in these pauses that we meet the parts of ourselves we’ve been too busy to notice. The part that craves rest. The part that longs to create. The part that is tired of performing.

Many of us are so conditioned to fill time that we forget what it means to simply exist. But if we can resist the urge to soothe the silence, boredom begins to reveal things. It holds space for unresolved emotions, flashes of creativity, and unexpected clarity. It asks, without judgment: What are you running from, and what might you discover if you stopped?

Therapeutically, boredom offers something rare: the chance to build emotional tolerance. It allows us to sit with discomfort without needing to fix it. It teaches us to stay, rather than escape, and in doing so, reconnect with what we actually care about. It’s where our true desires often live, beneath the noise.

Even neuroscience supports this. When we are bored, the brain’s default mode network becomes active. This network is associated with memory consolidation, self-reflection, and daydreaming. That idle state is often where insight, creativity, and coherence are born.

In therapy, I describe boredom as a doorway. It may be quiet, but it’s rarely empty. Step through it, and you may find yourself in conversation with parts of you that have been waiting to be heard.

So what if we stopped rushing to fill every quiet moment?

So maybe we stop trying to fill every moment.

Maybe we let the silence stay just a little longer.