PARIS – Has boredom seeped into your life to the point that it has painted all its sides completely in dull gray? You may think that boredom is at best harmless in certain doses, but a new study finds that it is necessary and even beneficial for mental health.
Boredom is an emotional feeling that lets you know you’re doing something that doesn’t entertain you mentally and doesn’t give you a sense of fulfillment or challenge. Boredom can usually tell you two things: first, that you are not fully present in the activity you are doing, and second, that the activity has no meaning or significance for you.
Boredom can appear in two ways, either through an intense sense of lethargy, fatigue, and apathy, or through irritability, nervousness, and anger.
But a study published by the French newspaper “Le Figaro” found that this feeling has many benefits, especially for human mental health.
The psychiatric study, which was conducted in France, was based on what the French experienced during the period of sanitary isolation, following the outbreak of the new Corona virus, as everyone stayed in their homes amid a prevailing belief that anxiety would control them and destroy the mental health of the majority of them.
The newspaper said, “Since the escalation of the first Corona wave at the end of the first quarter of the year 2020, the French began to manage their work through video meetings, announcing on social networks that they would re-read their favorite books, start online training, and even learn a foreign language.”
She added, “While it was believed that the period of sanitary isolation, which causes a lot of laziness, boredom, and emptiness, will have dire health consequences, giving the impression that the minutes pass endlessly, the opinion of psychiatrist Patrick Lemoine was completely contrary to that approach.”