Why Are We So Afraid of Being Bored?

Thank you to our member, Anna Jackson, for this article.

I’ll be honest, this is something I struggle with myself.

The second there’s a gap, a queue, a red light, the kettle boiling, my hand is already moving towards my phone before I’ve even properly registered that I’m bored. I know I am not the only one.

We’ve become really uncomfortable with empty moments. We fill them almost automatically. Scroll, check messages, put a podcast on, answer an email, watch something. There’s always something available and it’s usually screen related.

But boredom isn’t actually the problem.

It’s what boredom creates.

It creates unstructured mental space. And when there’s no noise coming from the outside, you suddenly have a chance to notice what’s going on inside. Sometimes that’s uncomfortable. You might realise you’ve been quietly worrying about something you’ve been avoiding. Or that you’re lonely, or overwhelmed, or unhappy with a part of your life. You might start thinking about a decision you’ve been putting off.

So what do we do? We reach for the phone.

What’s interesting is how automatic it’s become. There’s often no conscious decision. Just a tiny flicker of discomfort, and then the screen. The phone gives us immediate stimulation, the discomfort vanishes, and it feels like relaxation. A lot of the time it’s just avoidance.

Maybe it doesn’t stop us thinking, but more importantly it stops us feeling and processing the emotions of the day. Those quiet gaps are often where the feelings catch up with us. When we fill every one of them, the feelings never quite get the chance. Feelings are there to be experienced. They don’t go away. They build up.

Our brains learn from repetition. If every small moment of boredom is followed by stimulation, we start teaching ourselves that boredom is something we can’t tolerate. That waiting needs to be filled. That silence needs interrupting. That uncomfortable feelings need dealing with straight away.

I see this particularly clearly when working with OCD. Part of recovery is learning that you can have an intrusive thought or an uncomfortable feeling without immediately doing something to make it go away. Practising that with the smaller, everyday moments of discomfort can be surprisingly useful. With ADHD, boredom can feel especially hard because the brain is often looking for stimulation and a phone offers an almost endless supply of it. Again, it’s not that phones are evil or that people just need more willpower. It’s about gradually getting more comfortable with less stimulation.

But this isn’t just an OCD or ADHD thing. It’s a human thing.

We’re living in a world where stimulation is available almost every second of the day. We rarely have to wait for anything anymore. Curious about something? Instant search. Bored? Instant entertainment.

Our brains weren’t designed for this. For most of our ancestry, long stretches of quiet and waiting were normal. The mind had time to settle, wander, and process. Constant, on demand stimulation is new.

I wonder what we’re losing because of that.

Some of our better thoughts arrive when we’re not trying to think. In the shower. Driving. Walking. Looking out of a window. Lying in bed before sleep. There’s something about letting the mind wander that gives it room to process things, make connections, and come up with ideas that might never appear when we’re constantly consuming. The magic lives in those quiet moments.

So I’ve been experimenting with something very simple. Leaving my phone alone, not for a whole weekend or some dramatic detox. Just the small moments.

Standing in a queue without checking anything.

Waiting for the kettle without scrolling.

Walking to the car without headphones.

Sitting for five minutes without needing to be entertained.

At first it feels oddly uncomfortable. And that’s exactly why I think it’s worth doing.

The goal isn’t to suddenly love boredom. Nobody needs to find queuing peaceful. The goal is just to get a bit more comfortable with not immediately escaping it.

Because even if we can’t see the harm in always resisting boredom, there is still harm. We’re training ourselves out of the ability to sit with ourselves. We’re losing the space where things quietly settle and rearrange. Being constantly occupied isn’t the same as being fulfilled. You can fill an entire day and still feel like you never really stopped.

Perhaps stopping isn’t wasted time. Perhaps it’s part of how we actually process our lives.

So the next time you reach for your phone because nothing’s happening, try waiting. Just for a moment. Let yourself be bored. Notice what your mind does when you stop giving it something to consume.

You might be surprised by what comes up. And you might find that boredom was never something you needed to escape from in the first place.