The Unexpected Link Between Boredom, Creativity, and Emotional Regulation

How Boredom Supports Innovation and Emotional Adaptation

Photo by Ekoate Nwaforlor on Unsplash

Eight Pillars Categories: Intellectual & Emotional

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Most of us think of boredom as a problem—something to be avoided, fixed, or scrolled away from. But research is starting to tell a different story. Boredom may be doing something useful: nudging us toward creativity and helping us become more emotionally flexible. Both are critical for long-term wellness.

This piece explores what boredom is, its potential benefits, and how we can work with it rather than against it.

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What Is Boredom Really?

Psychologists define boredom as "the aversive experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity" (Eastwood et al., 2012). So you're not checked out entirely—you want something meaningful to do, but nothing around you is cutting it.

It's different from apathy. In the 2014 study by Goetz and colleagues, boredom is primarily distinguished along two psychological dimensions: valence (referring to the degree of positivity or negativity experienced during boredom) and arousal (referring to the level of mental and physiological activation, ranging from calm to restless states).

People who are bored still care. They're just stuck. One of the four types defined by these two dimensions—called "restless boredom"—is especially interesting. It's the restless, slightly agitated version that seems to push people to explore, try new things, or ask bigger questions. Goetz et al. (2014) found that this kind of boredom often leads to curiosity and new insights.

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Why Boredom Is Hard to Come By

The irony? Most of us rarely get bored anymore. Between phones, emails, streaming shows, and social feeds, our lives are full of stimulation. There's always something to check.

However, that constant input can make it harder for boredom to take hold. Boredom used to serve as a kind of internal signal—a nudge to seek something deeper or more meaningful. When we override that nudge with dopamine hits from our devices, we might miss the chance for reflection or creative thinking. Bench & Lench (2013) suggest that boredom may have evolved to help us shift gears when our current environment is not providing what we need. It's a kind of cognitive pressure release—a signal that it's time for novelty, change, or insight.

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The Surprising Link to Creativity

So what happens when we let ourselves be bored?

In a small but well-known study, Mann & Cadman (2014) had participants copy phone numbers out of a phone book—a deliberately boring task. Afterward, those participants came up with more creative uses for everyday objects than participants who hadn't done the boring task first.

The researchers suggested that boredom encouraged participants to turn inward. With no external stimulation, their brains started making new connections—what psychologists call "divergent thinking."

Other research supports this. Mooneyham & Schooler (2013) reviewed findings on mind-wandering and concluded that it plays a key role in creative problem-solving. When we daydream, we tend to pull ideas from different mental drawers—memories, conversations, unfinished thoughts—and sometimes those combinations lead to something new.

Every day example: You're folding laundry or stuck in traffic. You're not doing much, but your mind is going. You replay a conversation, remember something you read, or imagine a different outcome. And suddenly, you have a new idea.

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What the Brain Does During Downtime

The brain is far from idle when you're bored.

Periods of rest activate something called the default mode network (DMN)—a group of brain regions linked to internal thought, imagination, and sense-making. Andrews-Hanna et al. (2014) found that the DMN facilitates our ability to reflect on the past, plan for the future, and integrate emotional experiences.

That's one reason boredom can lead to "aha" moments. When we give the DMN space to work, we allow our brains to make sense of things, sometimes in surprisingly creative or useful ways.

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