Boredom: Is It Good For You?

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. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Wendy Zukerman?

  Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and this is Science vs.

• 0:05Wendy Zukerman?

  Today on the show, we're pitting facts against feeling bored.

• 0:14Wendy Zukerman?

  Across the internet, people are embracing being bored.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Raw dogging boredom for one hour.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Raw dogging one hour straight, no phone, no TV, no music, no moving, no sleeping for an hour straight.

• 0:28Wendy 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?

• 0:44Speaker 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.

• 0:51Speaker 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.

• 0:59Wendy 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.

• 1:15Speaker 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?

• 1:22Speaker 06

  Einstein and Newton got their biggest ideas when they were bored and doing nothing.

• 1:28Wendy 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...

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Raw dogging boredom.

• 1:51Wendy Zukerman?

  And then, there's science.

• 1:55Wendy Zukerman?

  Science vs. boredom will be coming up just after the break.

• 2:04Wendy Zukerman?

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• 2:43Speaker 07

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• 3:11Wendy 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.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  Hey, Wendy.

• 3:19Wendy Zukerman?

  Hello, Michelle. How do you feel about your boredom levels? Are you bored right now?

• 3:24Speaker 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?

• 3:43Wendy 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.

• 4:28Speaker 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.

• 4:39Wendy Zukerman?

  Great.

• 4:40Speaker 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.

• 4:56Wendy Zukerman?

  Which isn't hard in an FMRI. It's a boring space.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  That's true, but this is like a little step further. So listen to this.

• 5:02Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 5:03Speaker 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.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Do you want to see pictures of what it looked like?

• 5:14Wendy 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.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Dim beige room.

• 5:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, yeah. I would hate that.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  And this was a like a four-minute clip that was on loop. They got to watch it twice.

• 5:48Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Inside the machine.

• 5:52Speaker 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.

• 6:06Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes, yes, I've seen it. It's incredibly interesting. Yes.

• 6:10Speaker 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

• 6:26Speaker 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.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Have you heard about the default mode network before?

• 6:48Wendy 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.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Exactly. Here's James.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  It just turned out that video was so mind-numbingly dull that they disengaged from it and activated this default network.

• 7:14Wendy Zukerman?

  And then what happened to the brains in the group that got to watch that interesting video with the turtles and Planet Earth?

• 7:22Speaker 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.

• 7:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh, that makes sense. So does it matter that whether the default mode network is on or off?

• 7:41Speaker 03

  Well, the people online love to clamour about the DMN.

• 7:44Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 7:45Speaker 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.

• 8:01Wendy 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.

• 8:18Speaker 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.

• 8:28Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  For example, an overactive DMN can be linked to things like ruminating and negative thoughts.

• 8:34Wendy Zukerman?

  Mm hmm.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  And of course, we know that we don't always think good thoughts when our mind is wandering.

• 8:39Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes, of course. Right, yeah, you start watching this video about laundry, you get bored. Who knows where your mind is gonna go?

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 8:49Wendy Zukerman?

  When it taps into this default mode network. Interesting. What else did James find in this study?

• 8:56Speaker 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.

• 9:07Wendy Zukerman?

  I associate the insular cortex with understanding what's happening in our own body, feeling pain.

• 9:14Speaker 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.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  We're saying there's really nothing interesting here for you to look at. Nothing that would would help you pursue a goal.

• 9:36Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, and during boredom, that part of the brain dialed down.

• 9:41Speaker 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.

• 10:04Speaker 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.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  And so here's here's where we're going with this.

• 10:12Wendy Zukerman?

  Here's the punchline, yeah. Before my insular cortex completely switches off, Michelle, let's get to the punchline.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  So the idea here is that your brain is signaling you to find, like whatever you can to escape the monotony of boredom.

• 10:27Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 10:28Speaker 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.

• 10:39Speaker 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.

• 11:00Speaker 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.

• 11:12Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes, I have heard of this study. But what, I never read it, though. What did they actually do?

• 11:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's pretty fun. So the researchers had these people sit in a room with nothing to do for 15 minutes.

• 11:24Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 11:25Speaker 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.

• 11:38Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  However, these same people who didn't like it, 40% of them shocked themselves at least once when they got into the room.

• 11:46Wendy Zukerman?

  40% within 15 minutes of being bored?

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:50Wendy 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.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Right. And Wendy, there was somebody who shocked himself 190 times.

• 12:07Wendy Zukerman?

  That, I mean, she'll, they, they liked it, that person.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 12:12Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 12:13Speaker 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.

• 12:24Wendy 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.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:47Wendy Zukerman?

  Because they're bored.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:52Wendy 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?

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, Wendy, that's my next question. If our brains get bored, could that lead us to the land of creativity?

• 13:18Wendy Zukerman?

  Exactly.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  That is coming up after the break.

• 13:20Wendy Zukerman?

  Right.

• 13:32Speaker 07

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• 15:29Wendy 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.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, that is the big claim we're hearing from the internet people, that boredom will unlock and push you into creativity.

• 15:51Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes.

• 15:52Speaker 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.

• 16:08Speaker 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.

• 16:26Wendy Zukerman?

  It's true. It's so true.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And Gihun would notice something about how she was spending time in these moments. She was picking up her pen and...

• 16:38Speaker 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.

• 16:52Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, yeah, she's able to switch her brain into a productive state rather than kicking herself in the shins under the table.

• 16:59Speaker 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.

• 17:08Wendy Zukerman?

  Great.

• 17:08Speaker 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.

• 17:31Speaker 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.

• 17:48Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes, you did.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I asked you to record yourself doing it. So here is a bit of that.

• 17:54Wendy 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.

• 18:15Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay.

• 18:17Wendy Zukerman?

  Here are my red beans going in.

• 18:25Wendy Zukerman?

  Chickpeas going in.

• 18:32Wendy Zukerman?

  Okay, now I'm gonna mix them up.

• 18:38Wendy Zukerman?

  Time starts now.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  And to make it even worse, Guhan designed it so that you did it.

• 18:51Speaker 05

  Just one by one, using one hand, so that it's a monotonous.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  So Guhan did this with over 50 students in a big hall. And here's what happened.

• 19:02Speaker 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.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  Could you see the boredom on their faces?

• 19:14Speaker 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.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  Wendy, you had that numbing kind of face by the end too.

• 19:40Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Here's some tape of you, if you've forgotten it.

• 19:49Wendy 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...

• 20:28Speaker 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.

• 20:51Wendy 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.

• 21:36Wendy 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.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Wendy, you came up with a lot of good ideas.

• 22:02Wendy Zukerman?

  Did I do okay? I always feel like I want to win. Did I win, Michelle?

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Compared to the study, I think you went above and beyond with how many you came up with.

• 22:13Wendy Zukerman?

  Thanks, Michelle.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Thirty-five?

• 22:14Wendy Zukerman?

  Thirty-five, yeah. What did other people come up with?

• 22:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, there were some really great responses that they got, too.

• 22:20Speaker 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.

• 22:34Wendy Zukerman?

  I feel like I was on the someone [BLEEP] on you sort of frame of mind.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, wasn't it a rhino?

• 22:40Wendy 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.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  It's a pretty bad day, though.

• 22:50Wendy Zukerman?

  It's true, on the face.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  But what were you doing at a zoo before work?

• 22:54Wendy 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?

• 23:16Speaker 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.

• 23:25Wendy Zukerman?

  Hmm.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  And just like you, they were also able to come up with a lot more ideas than the art group.

• 23:31Wendy Zukerman?

  Huh.

• 23:32Speaker 05

  I found the significant finding that boredom actually can increase the creative performance. I was like, oh, okay, hmm, interesting.

• 23:41Wendy 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.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 23:54Wendy Zukerman?

  And then I could grab on to this pro, new project of all the silly excuses I could come up with.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  It was like, it was like roaring, it was like, let me out of here.

• 24:05Wendy Zukerman?

  It was raw dogging, almost, yeah.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:08Wendy Zukerman?

  So boredom can inspire creativity?

• 24:11Speaker 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.

• 24:29Wendy Zukerman?

  What a boring result.

• 24:31Speaker 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.

• 24:51Wendy Zukerman?

  Uh huh.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  Things like need for cognition and openness to experience.

• 24:57Wendy Zukerman?

  Need for cognition? Does some people not have a need for cognition?

• 25:02Speaker 03

  I think some people have more of a need for cognition.

• 25:05Wendy 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?

• 25:23Speaker 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.

• 25:38Speaker 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.

• 26:13Wendy Zukerman?

  Or intentional disengagement.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:15Wendy Zukerman?

  From the thrust and parry of life.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, do you like that?

• 26:18Wendy Zukerman?

  I do, I do.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. So James says exactly that, like intentional engagement could be choosing to veg out. It could be choosing to relax.

• 26:29Wendy 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?

• 26:38Speaker 03

  OK, hashtag raw dog disconnection.

• 26:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes. Yes.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Is that right?

• 26:45Wendy Zukerman?

  Yes. Apologies for the incredibly 2010 reference at this point.

• 26:52Speaker 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.

• 27:05Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh.

• 27:06Speaker 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.

• 27:28Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, that's cool. And feels very relatable.

• 27:32Speaker 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.

• 27:52Wendy Zukerman?

  Oh, that is cool, picturing our brain doing that. It does, it sounds a little bit like meditation.

• 27:59Speaker 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.

• 28:08Wendy 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.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  OK.

• 28:19Wendy Zukerman?

  Are you getting bored?

• 28:21Speaker 03

  Not yet.

• 28:22Wendy Zukerman?

  OK, no, me neither.

• 28:25Wendy Zukerman?

  What about now?

• 28:26Speaker 03

  I'm good.

• 28:30Wendy Zukerman?

  All right. So here's what I've learnt about boredom, Michelle.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  Yes, please help me.

• 28:37Wendy 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.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  And Get off like the hamster wheel.

• 29:01Wendy Zukerman?

  Get off the hamster wheel. Raw dog, that state of mind.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  You meant raw dog disconnection from the thrust and parry.

• 29:10Wendy Zukerman?

  Raw dog disconnection from the thrust and parry. All right, thanks, Michelle.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  Thank you, Wendy.

• 29:18Wendy 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.

• 29:49Wendy 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.

• 30:33Wendy Zukerman?

  I particularly struggle because I think on this show, on Science Versus, we work really hard to get the facts out to people.

• 30:45Wendy 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...

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Using big fancy words.

• 31:04Wendy Zukerman?

  Maybe they're even aligned to a fancy university, and yet I still know they're talking rubbish.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:10Wendy 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.

• 31:23Speaker 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?

• 31:31Wendy Zukerman?

  The Substance with Demi Moore.

• 31:34Speaker 03

  Memorable movie.

• 31:35Wendy 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.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  Did you, you liked it?

• 32:06Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah, I liked it. It bangs you over the head with its message, but it's a good message nonetheless.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  It does bang you over the head, but I like how extreme it's okay.

• 32:15Wendy Zukerman?

  Yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  You know, go big or go home.

• 32:20Wendy 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.

• 32:32Wendy Zukerman?

  All right, Michelle.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 32:33Wendy Zukerman?

  We're back. How many citations were in this week's episode?

• 32:37Speaker 03

  There are 36 citations.

• 32:39Wendy Zukerman?

  And if people want to see them in all their glory, learn more about the science of boredom, where should they go?

• 32:43Speaker 03

  Just head over to our show notes and click on the transcript.

• 32:46Wendy Zukerman?

  All right, cool. Thanks, Michelle. Bye.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  Bye, Wendy. Thanks.

• 32:56Wendy Zukerman?

  This episode was produced...

• 32:57Speaker 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.

• 33:35Speaker 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.

• 34:03Speaker 06

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