Watching how the brain reacts to boredom could help people cope

Trouble is a common human experience. But the way people manage or manage boredom is important for mental health.

"Everyone is having trouble," said Sammy Perone, an badistant professor at the University of Washington State Department of Human Development. "But some people feel it a lot, which is unhealthy, so we wanted to see how to manage it effectively."

The brains of people subject to boredom react differently to those who do not bother him, Perone and his colleagues discovered in a new article recently published in the newspaper psychophysiology.

Among their discoveries, people who are bored more often tend to be more anxious and more prone to depression.

Perone conducted the research and wrote the paper with WSU Assistant Professor Elizabeth Weybright and WSU graduate student Alana Anderson.

"Previously, we thought that people who reacted more negatively to boredom would have specific brain waves before getting bored," Perone said. "But in our basic tests, we could not differentiate between brain waves, it was only when they were in a state of boredom that the difference surfaced."

This means that the big difference between people who are bored is often the way they react to a boring situation. The implication is that they can learn coping mechanisms to avoid these negative responses.

How to annoy people

To study how the brain reacts to boredom, you must first do a basic screening and then annoy people almost until tears. Perone therefore studied 54 people in his lab, where they entered, completed a questionnaire and were equipped with a special cap that measures brain waves at 128 points of the scalp.

The survey consisted of a series of questions about the boredom and the reaction of the participants. Next, the researchers measured the brainwaves of each participant with their eyes open and closed for basic reading. Then the trouble started.

The subjects sat in front of a computer and posted eight pegs on the screen. Their job was to click on the ankle that had been highlighted. Each click rotates the ankle a quarter of a turn. Then another would be highlighted. The experiment consisted of 320 quarter turn, taking about 10 minutes.

"I've never done it, it's really tedious," said Perone. "But when looking for past experiences, this task was considered the most boring – it's what we needed."

Reactions to boredom are the key

When badyzing brain wave results, researchers looked at two specific areas. The right and left frontal areas of the brain are active for different reasons. The left frontal activity is higher when people try to engage or stimulate themselves by thinking of something else. The right frontal activity increases when people experience more negative emotions or become more anxious.

In baseline tests, there was no difference between those who reacted with higher left brain activity than the right brain. But the people who answered the poll's questions saying that they were more prone to getting bored in their daily lives had a more upright frontal brain activity as they were bored in. doing ankle activity.

"We found that people who mastered the boredom in daily life, according to the polls, were moving further to the left," Perone said. "Those who do not do as well in everyday life have changed more right."

To face the boredom

According to Perone, there are many ways for people to deal with boredom. They are looking for a book or something to read. They create a shopping list or think about what they will prepare for dinner, for example.

"We had a person in the experience who reported having mentally rehearsed Christmas songs for an upcoming concert.They did the exercise of flipping to the rhythm of the music in their head," he said. Perone. "Doing things that keep you engaged rather than focusing on your boredom is really helpful."

Real-world application

The next stage of research will be to get people to be more proactive in their thoughts when they get bored.

"The results of this article show that it is possible to react more positively to boredom," Perone said. "Now we want to find the best tools we can give people to be bored in a positive way, so we will continue to do badembly, but we will give them something to think about."

"It's really important to link the lab to the real world, so if we can help people cope better with boredom, it can have a real positive impact on mental health."

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