Boredom. Part of our mental health.
When you pay attention to boredom, it gets unbelievably interesting
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Boredom is a universal human experience and one that our society teaches us to avoid and dislike. Like pain or other uncomfortable emotions, boredom can be an opportunity for change and growth.
Anhedonia can feel like boredom but it's harder to snap out of. Anhedonia is an “inability to feel pleasure under conditions when most people would feel happy.”
Severe anhedonia is often seen in major depression, and it can also be seen after quitting substances.
Why oh Why?
At various points in our lives and from various causes, our dopamine levels can become naturally depleted. Dopamine stimulates our brain’s pleasure centers, few things make us happy when we lack this neurochemical.
We feel “blah” in ways that may feel like boredom; however, it may just be a lack of dopamine we’re experiencing.
When we’re bored, we can find an activity to fill our time and feel better fairly quickly. Anhedonia, on the other hand, means that simply changing things up might not help us feel better. This struggle can be incredibly frustrating, especially when we think we’re doing all the right things.
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Signs of Anhedonia Feeling numb or flat all the time. Feeling neither joy not sadness. Feeling unmotivated A reduced libido Not feeling pleasure doing things you usually would Feeling that things are pointless |
Ways to beat Anhedomia Eat your fave food. Laugh! Watch something funny, hang out with someone fun or get to a comedy show. Exercise to get the endorphins flowing. Puzzles, hobbies, craft. Float your boat with a task. Take the focus off yourself > Help others, volunteer, write to a friend. Get busy! |
