Why Do We Get Bored?

Boredom is defined as feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one’s current activity. The question is; why does this happen? Interestingly enough humans are not the only beings that can be bored. Other animals can be bored when they have inadequate stimulation. Actually, for a fun fact: zoos are required by law to have some of their animal's habitats regularly altered so that their animals aren’t bored.

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Explicitly talking about humans, boredom happens because our brain is hardwired to seek out more, at least that’s what psychologists say. Dr. Irving Biederman a neuroscientist from the University of Southern California states that a brand-new experience will stimulate the release of opioids in our brain. This chemical reaction is what gives us excitement and adds the “fun” into experiencing new things.

For those who don’t know opioids are a chemical in the brain which gives a sense of pleasure. In the field of medicine opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors. A classification of opioids can be but are not limited to heroin, fentanyl, and pain relievers.

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Understanding this, if we took the complement (or inverse) relationship of how we get excited we could return how we become bored. This means that getting bored is just a lack of stimulation in our brain, which is honestly a rather anti-climactic answer that you probably already instinctively knew.

How does this help us? Well it’s not rocket science to understand that we’re bored when our brain isn’t properly stimulated, but finding a "cure" to boredom is a different story. This is very important to know because being bored is a side effect/symptom of a lot of psychological problems; one of them being depression.

Many scientists and doctors are continuing to search for cures to many of the present psychological problems. Understanding this will only push the limits of medication even further. The brain is complex, and it’s not as cookie-cutter as some may assume. If there was a defiantly, permanent solution in curing depression or even boredom, we would already have it. It is understanding the small details that helps us build the bigger picture.

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TL;DR: Boredom is a result of inadequate stimulation of the brain. It is the inverse relationship of getting excited. When we are excited our brain releases a chemical known as opioid. This chemical reaction is what gives us the "fun-factor" in experiencing new things, anything less than that is considered "boring".

While we may have already known that being bored is a lack of brain stimulation, studies like these help doctors and scientists find more permanent cures to bigger psychological problems such as depression.

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REFERENCES:

1. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/open-gently/201212/why-people-get-bored
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_enrichment
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypy_%28non-human%29

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