Pod Insights Science Vs Boredom: Is It Good For You? About this episode We keep hearing that we need to be BORED more, with people online swearing that boredom can work magic — restoring your mind, and even supercharging your creativity. So, is boredom secretly good for us? We talk to cognitive neuroscientist Prof. James Danckert and organizational psychologist Prof. Guihyun Park to find out.
Find our transcript here: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceVsBoredom
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) They say we need more boredom
(02:06) This is your brain on boredom
(12:30) Does boredom push us into creativity?
(22:08) Should you try to be more bored?
(23:53) When you give your brain time to rest
This episode was produced by Michelle Dang, with help from Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. Wendy Zukerman is our executive producer. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bobby Lord, Bumi Hidaka, So Wylie, Emma Munger and Peter Leonard.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Wendy Zukerman? Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and this is Science vs.
0:05 Wendy Zukerman? Today on the show, we're pitting facts against feeling bored.
0:14 Wendy Zukerman? Across the internet, people are embracing being bored.
0:18 Speaker 01 Raw dogging boredom for one hour.
0:20 Speaker 02 Raw dogging one hour straight, no phone, no TV, no music, no moving, no sleeping for an hour straight.
0:28 Wendy Zukerman? That's right, they're raw dogging boredom. There's all these videos of people recording themselves, sitting on the floor of their bedroom, doing basically nothing, in some cases for hours. And why are they doing this, raw dogging boredom?
0:44 Speaker 03 The problem is, we've created a way of living where you do not need to be bored at all. And the second you feel bored, you grab your phone.
0:51 Speaker 04 Like, people like to say, "Oh, I just can't be bored. I'm the type of person who always has to be doing something." Right? That's justifying the addiction.
0:59 Wendy Zukerman? Influencers are telling us that we need to push back against this addiction and embrace boredom like a lost art. They say that being bored is actually good for us and it could inspire us to be more imaginative and creative.
1:15 Speaker 05 We kind of treat boredom as if it's something to fix. But what if I tell you that boredom is actually the starting point of creativity?
1:22 Speaker 06 Einstein and Newton got their biggest ideas when they were bored and doing nothing.
1:28 Wendy Zukerman? So, would we all be Einsteins if we just raw dogged some boredom? Today on the show, the power of being bored. What exactly is going on in our brains when we're bored? And could we really supercharge our minds if we just embraced a bit of boredom? When it comes to boredom, there's a lot of...
1:50 Speaker 01 Raw dogging boredom.
1:51 Wendy Zukerman? And then, there's science.
1:55 Wendy Zukerman? Science vs. boredom will be coming up just after the break.
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2:43 Speaker 07 This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.
3:11 Wendy Zukerman? Welcome back. I'm Wendy Zukerman. Today, we are digging into the science on boredom. And to tell me all about it, here's producer Michelle Dang.
3:19 Speaker 03 Hey, Wendy.
3:19 Wendy Zukerman? Hello, Michelle. How do you feel about your boredom levels? Are you bored right now?
3:24 Speaker 03 No, I'm never bored when I'm talking to you. So when I hear people online talking about this, I do find myself nodding along because, I don't know, I don't feel that bored anymore. But I am one of those people who are always picking up my phone to look at something. So how do you feel? Have you been bored lately?
3:43 Wendy Zukerman? Um, I do worry that by constantly shoving things in my brain, you know, whether that's work, mindless scrolling, it just, sometimes it does feel like you're literally just jamming your brain full of things. It's just this constant stimulation. And sometimes it really does feel like my brain is just saying, "No, I'm too full right now." And it just wants to go, "Bleh!", and just be empty. And I don't let it be bored and empty. So I'm very excited to know what is going on in my brain that is that feeling of just be still.
4:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, I wanted to know about that, too. So we're going to dig into your brain on boredom. And to start, I talked to a cognitive neuroscientist named Professor James Danger from the University of Waterloo in Canada.
4:39 Wendy Zukerman? Great.
4:40 Speaker 03 And James and a colleague actually did a study looking exactly at this, the brain on boredom. So let me tell you about what they did. So they stuck 10 people into an FMRI machine and proceeded to bore the crap out of them.
4:56 Wendy Zukerman? Which isn't hard in an FMRI. It's a boring space.
4:59 Speaker 03 That's true, but this is like a little step further. So listen to this.
5:02 Wendy Zukerman? Okay.
5:03 Speaker 01 So to do that, we had them watch an eight-minute video of two guys hanging laundry. It's really quite effective at making people bored.
5:12 Speaker 03 Do you want to see pictures of what it looked like?
5:14 Wendy Zukerman? Oh, sure. Oh, oh, my God, that video, that that screenshot of the video of two guys doing laundry. I don't know why, but it looks even more boring than I had imagined. I think because I was picturing the guys outside doing laundry on a sunny day. But actually, they're just inside a house. They look so bored.
5:38 Speaker 03 Dim beige room.
5:41 Wendy Zukerman? Oh, yeah. I would hate that.
5:44 Speaker 03 And this was a like a four-minute clip that was on loop. They got to watch it twice.
5:48 Wendy Zukerman? Okay.
5:49 Speaker 03 Inside the machine.
5:52 Speaker 03 And then they had their brains do other stuff, too. For example, they had the participants watch an interesting video instead. It was a clip from BBC's Planet Earth, actually, with, you know, beautiful landscapes, music, a sea turtle, all that jazz.
6:06 Wendy Zukerman? Yes, yes, I've seen it. It's incredibly interesting. Yes.
6:10 Speaker 03 And then James and his colleague, they looked at all their brains in these different states to see what was going on. And what James noticed when people were bored were changes in a couple of systems in the brain. So let me start with this particular one that was all lit up. It's known as the
6:26 Speaker 01 Default mode network. And this is a network of brain areas that is more active when there is no external task for you to do. So people will also also call it an off-task network. It's active in things like daydreaming or mind wandering. It's active when you sort of prospectively think about the future.
6:44 Speaker 03 Have you heard about the default mode network before?
6:48 Wendy Zukerman? Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because I guess I associate. Boredom with thinking of nothing. But you're right, it's more when you've got, when you're just watching guys doing laundry, your mind just wanders into its default state. Yeah.
7:05 Speaker 03 Exactly. Here's James.
7:07 Speaker 01 It just turned out that video was so mind-numbingly dull that they disengaged from it and activated this default network.
7:14 Wendy Zukerman? And then what happened to the brains in the group that got to watch that interesting video with the turtles and Planet Earth?
7:22 Speaker 03 Yeah, so in that group, it looked like the DMN was less active, so they didn't see the same pattern, probably because there was a bunch of great stuff to focus on in that clip.
7:32 Wendy Zukerman? Uh huh, that makes sense. So does it matter that whether the default mode network is on or off?
7:41 Speaker 03 Well, the people online love to clamour about the DMN.
7:44 Wendy Zukerman? Uh huh.
7:45 Speaker 03 They say it's a really important system in our brain, and that part is true. We know that the DMN plays a role in our sense of self, like it's active when we self-reflect, when we think about the past or the future, or when we process our emotions. All this stuff happens when we're just resting too.
8:01 Wendy Zukerman? So is the default mode network always good when it's activated? Because I feel like sometimes when my mind wanders, it just goes back to these kind of negative thoughts, often revolving around the theme of you're not good enough in some way.
8:18 Speaker 03 Yeah, so this is the flip side of this. It doesn't make sense to claim that activating the DMN is always good and that we should just be, you know, sitting in a room, shutting everything out for hours at a time.
8:28 Wendy Zukerman? Right.
8:29 Speaker 03 For example, an overactive DMN can be linked to things like ruminating and negative thoughts.
8:34 Wendy Zukerman? Mm hmm.
8:35 Speaker 03 And of course, we know that we don't always think good thoughts when our mind is wandering.
8:39 Wendy Zukerman? Yes, of course. Right, yeah, you start watching this video about laundry, you get bored. Who knows where your mind is gonna go?
8:48 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
8:49 Wendy Zukerman? When it taps into this default mode network. Interesting. What else did James find in this study?
8:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, so while James saw the DMN perk up when people are bored, he also noticed this other part of the brain that showed less activity. It's called the insular cortex, and it's part of something called the salience network.
9:07 Wendy Zukerman? I associate the insular cortex with understanding what's happening in our own body, feeling pain.
9:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. And it also like plays a role in figuring out what's out there, like in our environment versus what we're feeling inside, and then what to do with it. Like James was saying, it basically helps us choose what's most important at that moment to pay attention to.
9:30 Speaker 01 We're saying there's really nothing interesting here for you to look at. Nothing that would would help you pursue a goal.
9:36 Wendy Zukerman? Oh, and during boredom, that part of the brain dialed down.
9:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly. So it dialed down, but it's also almost lying in wait for ways to escape the boredom. Because we know from other research that this part of the brain lights up and gets more active when people are given the opportunity to escape the boredom, like when they're presented something that's actually interesting for them to do. So James says that this insular cortex.
10:04 Speaker 01 This part of your your your brain, this network, is trying to say, okay, I've just been bored to death. I gotta find something.
10:10 Speaker 03 And so here's here's where we're going with this.
10:12 Wendy Zukerman? Here's the punchline, yeah. Before my insular cortex completely switches off, Michelle, let's get to the punchline.
10:19 Speaker 03 So the idea here is that your brain is signaling you to find, like whatever you can to escape the monotony of boredom.
10:27 Wendy Zukerman? Okay.
10:28 Speaker 03 Because Wendy, like, our brains do not like being bored. And and scientists actually define boredom as a negative thing, like a negative state of mind.
10:39 Speaker 01 When we're bored, we want something that that matters to us, but we don't want anything that's currently available to us. And so that's why boredom is a sort of, it's a motivating emotion because it's calling you to find that thing that's going to work. But it's also an agitated sort of restless feeling because clearly if you're bored, you're not satisfying that desire to be engaged.
11:00 Speaker 03 And you know, some people will go to huge lengths to avoid boredom. Like, there's this famous study where scientists looked at whether people would rather shock themselves than sit around being bored in a room.
11:12 Wendy Zukerman? Yes, I have heard of this study. But what, I never read it, though. What did they actually do?
11:18 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's pretty fun. So the researchers had these people sit in a room with nothing to do for 15 minutes.
11:24 Wendy Zukerman? Uh huh.
11:25 Speaker 03 And they had electrodes on their ankles, which were connected to a button they could press to activate this shock. And when people tested out the shock, guess what? Most of them said the shock sucked and they didn't like it.
11:38 Wendy Zukerman? Yes.
11:38 Speaker 03 However, these same people who didn't like it, 40% of them shocked themselves at least once when they got into the room.
11:46 Wendy Zukerman? 40% within 15 minutes of being bored?
11:49 Speaker 03 Yes.
11:50 Wendy Zukerman? Of sitting in an empty room, almost half of them shocked themselves. And it wasn't out of curiosity. They knew what the shock was like and they knew they didn't like it.
12:01 Speaker 03 Right. And Wendy, there was somebody who shocked himself 190 times.
12:07 Wendy Zukerman? That, I mean, she'll, they, they liked it, that person.
12:10 Speaker 03 Probably.
12:12 Wendy Zukerman? Okay.
12:13 Speaker 03 And other studies have since repeated this, showing that many of us would rather shock ourselves or do something against our own interests when we're bored. Because I guess boredom just sucks more.
12:24 Wendy Zukerman? I mean, people do, we do crazy things when we're bored. I, I remember this study from a while ago that asked people to name all the reasons they have sex. And one of them was bored. Which isn't crazy, but I mean, I've had friends who sleep with their exes because they're bored. You know, they'll just text their ex, someone they actively do not like.
12:47 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:47 Wendy Zukerman? Because they're bored.
12:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:52 Wendy Zukerman? So then the question is, so we know boredom is a state our brain doesn't like. And it, we will do things that are bad for us in order to escape the boredom. But should we persevere in that bored state? Will it give us some benefit?
13:10 Speaker 03 Yeah, Wendy, that's my next question. If our brains get bored, could that lead us to the land of creativity?
13:18 Wendy Zukerman? Exactly.
13:18 Speaker 03 That is coming up after the break.
13:20 Wendy Zukerman? Right.
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15:29 Wendy Zukerman? Welcome back. Today on the show, we're talking about boredom. Is this a state that we should be aspiring to? Michelle Deng, a producer here at Science Versus, is about to tell us whether being bored can actually inspire creativity. So, Gannett.
15:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, that is the big claim we're hearing from the internet people, that boredom will unlock and push you into creativity.
15:51 Wendy Zukerman? Yes.
15:52 Speaker 03 To get some science on this, we need to meet Professor Gihun Park from Korea University. She's an organizational psychologist. And Gihun got interested in boredom about a decade ago when she was finding herself stuck in some pretty boring meetings.
16:08 Speaker 05 It was usually the faculty meetings are really boring. Nothing that interests me, and it's just passing time. Something like that very boring tone of voice and monotones, you cannot escape. Like, you just feel stuck.
16:26 Wendy Zukerman? It's true. It's so true.
16:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. And Gihun would notice something about how she was spending time in these moments. She was picking up her pen and...
16:38 Speaker 05 Doodling and then writing new ideas. Oh, okay, so planning some new things, new research ideas, blah, blah, blah. I can occupy myself by doing it instead of feeling the torture.
16:52 Wendy Zukerman? Oh, yeah, she's able to switch her brain into a productive state rather than kicking herself in the shins under the table.
16:59 Speaker 03 So sometimes she'd use that boring time to work out solutions for problems she was having or finding new ways to do an experiment.
17:08 Wendy Zukerman? Great.
17:08 Speaker 03 And she started wondering, like, does this happen to everyone? And particularly, like, if we make people bored, can we spark creativity? So what Gihun did is she got together this big group of students and to get them bored and see if creativity fell at the other side, she didn't show them a video of dudes doing laundry. She did something a little different.
17:31 Speaker 03 She gave people a huge bowl of beans. And these are beans in two different colors. Told them to sit there and separate the beans out by color. And I'm sure this sounds familiar to you, Wendy, because I asked you to do this experiment too.
17:48 Wendy Zukerman? Yes, you did.
17:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, so I asked you to record yourself doing it. So here is a bit of that.
17:54 Wendy Zukerman? Pour both beans into the largest bowl. Mix them well together. Start a timer for 30 minutes. Sort the beans, one at a time, by moving all the red beans into your second bowl.
18:15 Wendy Zukerman? Okay.
18:17 Wendy Zukerman? Here are my red beans going in.
18:25 Wendy Zukerman? Chickpeas going in.
18:32 Wendy Zukerman? Okay, now I'm gonna mix them up.
18:38 Wendy Zukerman? Time starts now.
18:48 Speaker 03 And to make it even worse, Guhan designed it so that you did it.
18:51 Speaker 05 Just one by one, using one hand, so that it's a monotonous.
18:57 Speaker 03 So Guhan did this with over 50 students in a big hall. And here's what happened.
19:02 Speaker 05 So they do engage in one by one. And then after five minutes, you can feel that the entire room was filled with boredom.
19:12 Speaker 03 Could you see the boredom on their faces?
19:14 Speaker 05 Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. They, ooh, you know, they were really bored. They become really slow. You can see their actions getting really slow. And then they were not like, they lost their emotions on the face, right? The numbing, numbing kind of face.
19:37 Speaker 03 Wendy, you had that numbing kind of face by the end too.
19:40 Wendy Zukerman? Oh, yeah.
19:42 Speaker 03 Here's some tape of you, if you've forgotten it.
19:49 Wendy Zukerman? Forgot the rule about the just using one hand for a moment. And then I was back to using one hand. Ooh. Now I'm just kind of throwing them in like playing basketball. Gosh, it feels never ending though, because they're... Am I really gonna separate them completely? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm getting bored just listening back to myself. It's funny, I didn't know... I didn't know if I was bored, but my mind kept wandering. It kept hitting that default state where I started thinking about other things in my life. And then I... But my hand would kick...
20:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, so that was the boredom arm. And of course, there was a control group too. Glee Han had another group that she didn't want to be bored. So she had them make art with the beans on a white piece of paper for the 30 minutes. So after the 30 minutes of either sorting beans or making bean art was up, then came the creativity part. Everyone in the experiment had to answer a prompt, which I made you read out loud.
20:51 Wendy Zukerman? Right. Imagine a hypothetical situation in which Person A is two hours late for a work meeting. List all of the feasible and justifiable reasons Person A could use to account for being late so that Person A would not be perceived negatively by their teammates. There are no right or wrong responses. Please generate as many ideas as possible. Okay. Um, tama, tama, tama. And five minutes, let's go. Um, broken leg, broken arm. I mean, hell, broken ankle, broken neck. Uh, I think I'm gonna run here, this feels like cheating, though.
21:36 Wendy Zukerman? Helped older person with the bins, but then they trapped UTI. UTI is... Yeah, that's bad. Really big fight with partner. You found out your partner cheated on you, gave birth. Then they should just be happy you came to the meeting at all. Rhinoceros incident went at the zoo. Because you... Yeah. Like a rhinoceros maybe pood on you again.
21:59 Speaker 03 Wendy, you came up with a lot of good ideas.
22:02 Wendy Zukerman? Did I do okay? I always feel like I want to win. Did I win, Michelle?
22:07 Speaker 03 Compared to the study, I think you went above and beyond with how many you came up with.
22:13 Wendy Zukerman? Thanks, Michelle.
22:13 Speaker 03 Thirty-five?
22:14 Wendy Zukerman? Thirty-five, yeah. What did other people come up with?
22:17 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, there were some really great responses that they got, too.
22:20 Speaker 05 Oh, Alien, uh, Alien just visited my house, so I need to deal with him, you know, for a couple of minutes, and then I sent him home. Or, oh, bird [BLEEP] on my face, so I have to go back home and then change my whole clothing and stuff.
22:34 Wendy Zukerman? I feel like I was on the someone [BLEEP] on you sort of frame of mind.
22:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, wasn't it a rhino?
22:40 Wendy Zukerman? Yeah, I feel like me and that person who said that would have really gelled. For a bird [BLEEP] on your face, you don't get two hours of leeway, right? You can clean that off.
22:49 Speaker 03 It's a pretty bad day, though.
22:50 Wendy Zukerman? It's true, on the face.
22:52 Speaker 03 But what were you doing at a zoo before work?
22:54 Wendy Zukerman? Hmm, good question. Okay, but then the question is, right, of this whole experiment is, had I done the creative task, had I instead made an art project out of beans, would I have been even more creative? Or did boredom inspire creativity? What did she find?
23:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, so when Gihun looked at all the data across the groups, she found that, yes, people in the boredom group came out with more unique and creative responses than the people who were making bean art.
23:25 Wendy Zukerman? Hmm.
23:26 Speaker 03 And just like you, they were also able to come up with a lot more ideas than the art group.
23:31 Wendy Zukerman? Huh.
23:32 Speaker 05 I found the significant finding that boredom actually can increase the creative performance. I was like, oh, okay, hmm, interesting.
23:41 Wendy Zukerman? That is interesting, because what it did feel like, after sorting the beans for half an hour, I, my brain was really keen to find something interesting.
23:54 Speaker 03 Oh.
23:54 Wendy Zukerman? And then I could grab on to this pro, new project of all the silly excuses I could come up with.
24:02 Speaker 03 It was like, it was like roaring, it was like, let me out of here.
24:05 Wendy Zukerman? It was raw dogging, almost, yeah.
24:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:08 Wendy Zukerman? So boredom can inspire creativity?
24:11 Speaker 03 Well, maybe. Other research into this has been a bit mixed. Like, some studies find boredom boosts creativity and others don't. And there was a review that said, quote, "No clearly negative or positive relationship could be pinpointed between boredom and creativity," end quote.
24:29 Wendy Zukerman? What a boring result.
24:31 Speaker 03 But we might have an explanation for why it felt like the boredom worked for you. And feels helpful to other people, too. So Gihan did another version of this bean experiment, but this time she also gave them personality tests. And she found that bored people were more likely to be creative if they ranked higher in certain traits.
24:51 Wendy Zukerman? Uh huh.
24:52 Speaker 03 Things like need for cognition and openness to experience.
24:57 Wendy Zukerman? Need for cognition? Does some people not have a need for cognition?
25:02 Speaker 03 I think some people have more of a need for cognition.
25:05 Wendy Zukerman? Okay, all right, I guess I have a high need for cognition. So what is then, where do you land on this? Boredom, we clearly don't like it, but is it good or bad? Should I, should I try to be bored more?
25:23 Speaker 03 Well, even though Gihan found some potential benefit for creativity, overall, it's, it's not clear that boredom is the state that you want your mind to be in. As, as we talked about, it especially doesn't feel great. Here's James again.
25:38 Speaker 01 I've had people before say to me, I don't mind being bored, I like being bored. You know, boredom's fine. And what you find out when you probe them is that they don't, they're not talking about boredom at all. What they're talking about is relaxation or disconnection. They're talking about sort of disengaging from their, from the thrust and parry of their everyday lives. Or they're disengaging from social networks, or they're disengaging from devices or whatever. And they're doing very little. They're not doing much. And they say, yeah, it's fine, I like it. It's like, well, yeah, okay, that's great, but it's not boredom. We don't need more boredom. We just need more intentional engagement.
26:13 Wendy Zukerman? Or intentional disengagement.
26:14 Speaker 03 Yes.
26:15 Wendy Zukerman? From the thrust and parry of life.
26:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, do you like that?
26:18 Wendy Zukerman? I do, I do.
26:20 Speaker 03 Mm hmm. So James says exactly that, like intentional engagement could be choosing to veg out. It could be choosing to relax.
26:29 Wendy Zukerman? Right, and that there is this difference, you want a raw dog. Disconnection from the thrust and parry. You think we could get that as a hashtag going?
26:38 Speaker 03 OK, hashtag raw dog disconnection.
26:41 Wendy Zukerman? Yes. Yes.
26:44 Speaker 03 Is that right?
26:45 Wendy Zukerman? Yes. Apologies for the incredibly 2010 reference at this point.
26:52 Speaker 03 But away from that, Wendy, I found some science that shows that there is some benefit to just letting your brain rest, particularly with memory. So letting your brain rest can actually help you remember stuff that you learn.
27:05 Wendy Zukerman? Oh.
27:06 Speaker 03 So scientists will give people a list of words or a story to remember and then have them rest afterward with nothing to do. Or they'll have them do something mentally engaging, like play a game or scroll social media. And when they quizzed them afterward, they found that the people who were given time to rest after learning actually have better recall.
27:28 Wendy Zukerman? Oh, that's cool. And feels very relatable.
27:32 Speaker 03 And we think this is because when you learn something, your brain creates a new neural pathway. But when you give your brain a chance to rest, it lets that pathway repeat back and forth over and over again and consolidate that information. Even five to 10 minutes of rest can boost your memory in this way.
27:52 Wendy Zukerman? Oh, that is cool, picturing our brain doing that. It does, it sounds a little bit like meditation.
27:59 Speaker 03 Well, in some of the research, they literally just tell people to sit in a chair and relax, which is a bit different to meditation techniques.
28:08 Wendy Zukerman? All right, well, let's give our mind, before we recap the app, let's give our minds a little, a little bit of rest.
28:15 Speaker 03 OK.
28:19 Wendy Zukerman? Are you getting bored?
28:21 Speaker 03 Not yet.
28:22 Wendy Zukerman? OK, no, me neither.
28:25 Wendy Zukerman? What about now?
28:26 Speaker 03 I'm good.
28:30 Wendy Zukerman? All right. So here's what I've learnt about boredom, Michelle.
28:35 Speaker 03 Yes, please help me.
28:37 Wendy Zukerman? Boredom is a state that your brain doesn't like. And that you don't have to persevere through in order to get benefits. Probably what a lot of us are seeking right now is just stillness, quiet peace.
28:58 Speaker 03 And Get off like the hamster wheel.
29:01 Wendy Zukerman? Get off the hamster wheel. Raw dog, that state of mind.
29:07 Speaker 03 You meant raw dog disconnection from the thrust and parry.
29:10 Wendy Zukerman? Raw dog disconnection from the thrust and parry. All right, thanks, Michelle.
29:16 Speaker 03 Thank you, Wendy.
29:18 Wendy Zukerman? That's Science Versus. And if you want to get in touch with us, let us know what you thought of the episode. You can pop a comment if you're listening to this on Spotify. Or you can find us on Instagram, science underscore V S. I'm on TikTok at Wendy Zuck. Come and say hello. Before we get to the citations, we have a special segment for you where I answer questions from you guys, our listeners. So here it is.
29:49 Wendy Zukerman? Today's Ask Wendy Anything, Ask Me Anything, is brought to you by Amazon Health AI. Amazon Health AI is here to stop the late night internet help searches. It can connect your symptoms with your medical history to offer personalised care 24/7. So call off the search. Here to ask me some questions is senior producer Rose Rimla. Hey, Rose. Hey. Okay, so someone who goes by T on TikTok has asked, how do you protect your mental health with science deniers? Ooh, thanks. That sounds like a very caring question. When I am feeling down, it can make me feel quite down. Yeah, I mean, I can really struggle with this.
30:33 Wendy Zukerman? I particularly struggle because I think on this show, on Science Versus, we work really hard to get the facts out to people.
30:45 Wendy Zukerman? And it's difficult to watch as other voices are louder and talking nonsense, but have the appearance of being legitimate. Do you know what I mean? Whether they're wearing a lab coat or...
31:03 Speaker 03 Using big fancy words.
31:04 Wendy Zukerman? Maybe they're even aligned to a fancy university, and yet I still know they're talking rubbish.
31:09 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
31:10 Wendy Zukerman? I really struggle with that. I guess the question is, how do I protect myself? I guess I just focus on what we can do, which is we pump out good information that we trust. And on a good day, I just focus on that.
31:23 Speaker 03 Sounds good. We got another one from the Painting Nihilist on Instagram. What was the last movie you watched in the theater? And what did you think of it?
31:31 Wendy Zukerman? The Substance with Demi Moore.
31:34 Speaker 03 Memorable movie.
31:35 Wendy Zukerman? Memorable. And it was even more memorable because I watched it on a Monday morning. And it was just me and this other guy there in an otherwise completely empty theater. And it's a body horror. Ah! Especially the ending is like, ah! And at the end of it, we just looked at each other and we're like, oh, ah! Okay, well, have a good Monday then. All right.
32:04 Speaker 03 Did you, you liked it?
32:06 Wendy Zukerman? Yeah, I liked it. It bangs you over the head with its message, but it's a good message nonetheless.
32:11 Speaker 03 It does bang you over the head, but I like how extreme it's okay.
32:15 Wendy Zukerman? Yeah.
32:15 Speaker 03 You know, go big or go home.
32:20 Wendy Zukerman? That was today's Ask Me Anything, and it was brought to you by Amazon Health AI. Amazon Health AI is here. Healthcare just got less painful.
32:32 Wendy Zukerman? All right, Michelle.
32:33 Speaker 03 Hello.
32:33 Wendy Zukerman? We're back. How many citations were in this week's episode?
32:37 Speaker 03 There are 36 citations.
32:39 Wendy Zukerman? And if people want to see them in all their glory, learn more about the science of boredom, where should they go?
32:43 Speaker 03 Just head over to our show notes and click on the transcript.
32:46 Wendy Zukerman? All right, cool. Thanks, Michelle. Bye.
32:48 Speaker 03 Bye, Wendy. Thanks.
32:56 Wendy Zukerman? This episode was produced...
32:57 Speaker 06 By Michelle Deng with help from Merrill Horn, Rose Rimmler and Akati Foster Keys. I'm the executive producer. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bobby Lord, Bumi Hidaka, So Wiley, Emma Munga and Peter Leonard. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell icon if you want to get notifications when new episodes come up. I'll wait to see you back next week.
33:35 Speaker 06 This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
34:03 Speaker 06 Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon fall drop because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's fall line has some really versatile transitional pieces so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in store and online now at lululemon.com.
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