Boredom is Where You Meet Your Mind; DL Ep.34 with Dr. Richie Davidson and Dr. Cortland Dahl

We now live in a world where boredom is almost optional. The moment there is a gap in the day, we can reach for a device and instantly distract ourselves.

In this episode of Dharma Lab, Dr. Richard Davidson and Dr. Cortland Dahl explore boredom and restlessness from both a scientific and contemplative perspective. Richie explains why boredom often brings us face to face with the “default mode” of the brain, the self-referential narrative we carry around about who we are. Cort reflects on the physical, restless energy of boredom, and how meditation can turn that discomfort into an object of curiosity. They also offer a simple and powerful tool to bring more awareness into our day: the next time we feel the urge to escape boredom, we can pause, notice the urge, and let that moment become a practice.

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Episode Companion Flashcards!

In this episode

00:00:00 – Have we lost the ability to be bored?00:00:58 – Why boredom matters00:01:21 – “I could not sit still”00:03:34 – Boredom and comfort with our own mind00:04:19 – The default mode network00:05:01 – Why awareness can feel uncomfortable at first00:06:52 – The body’s role in restlessness00:08:36 – Richie’s childhood outlet: the bicycle00:11:12 – Why kids need to move00:12:15 – Meditation as training for boredom00:13:19 – Phones as an escape from discomfort00:14:41 – The everyday practice of not checking your phone00:16:25 – Turning the urge into a cue for awareness00:18:44 – What does boredom actually feel like?00:20:21 – Who is actually bored?00:22:03 – Turning ordinary waiting into practice

Written transcript for those who prefer to read

00:00:00 – Have we lost the ability to be bored?

Cortland Dahl:We’re now living in a world where we just have such an easy escape hatch. We carry around these devices, and it’s so easy to distract ourselves that I feel like we’ve almost developed an incapacity to be bored.

Richie Davidson:Our response to boredom, our relationship to boredom, has a lot to do with our comfort with our own mind. One of the things about boredom is that we tend to get bored when there’s not stuff for us to do. And when there’s not stuff for us to do, we are confronted inevitably by our own mind.

00:00:58 – Why boredom matters

Cortland:Hello everyone. Welcome to Dharma Lab. I’m here with my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Richard Davidson, one of the world’s eminent neuroscientists, and I’m Cortland Dahl.

Today we’re going to talk about something I think probably everybody experiences, and maybe experiences a lot, which is boredom and restlessness.

00:01:21 – “I could not sit still”

Cortland:I have such vivid memories of this. If we had a normal distribution of where people fall and how easily bored they are, I’m pretty sure I would have been an outlier. I was so easily bored as a kid. I was one of those kids who just could not sit still.

I have vivid memories, especially of summer afternoons, sitting at home and desperately trying to call my friends to see if anybody wanted to hang out. There was nothing on TV. This was back in the days before you could get everything on demand, just boring daytime TV shows.

And I remember this feeling of crawling out of my skin. I literally could not sit there. We had no mobile phones. This was long before the iPhone and smartphones. But I would have done anything to have had something like that.

Now it’s kind of amazing. After years of meditation, I would say if one thing has changed in my life, it’s my relationship to boredom. I kind of feel like I’m immune to boredom now. There’s a whole long practice history with that.

But I thought we could start by talking about boredom because we’re now living in a world where we have such an easy escape hatch. We carry around these devices, and it’s so easy to distract ourselves that I feel like we’ve almost developed an incapacity to be bored, to just sit with that.

So maybe we could talk about it from a scientific perspective. We can both share our personal experiences. But let me kick it over to you, Richie, and see if you have any opening thoughts. Then we can dive into it more deeply.

00:03:34 – Boredom and comfort with our own mind

Richie:I think boredom is an interesting topic.

Cortland:It is. That’s the weird thing. It’s strangely interesting. Boredom is not boring.

Richie:Yeah, it is strangely interesting.

I think it’s a phenomenon that has been deeply impacted by changes in the fabric of our society, by the development of technology and so forth.

And I think boredom, our response to boredom, our relationship to boredom, has a lot to do with our comfort with our own mind.

One of the things about boredom is that we tend to get bored when there’s not stuff for us to do. And when there’s not stuff for us to do, we are confronted inevitably by our own mind. That is the one thing we can’t get rid of.

People try, with drugs and other ways to dull the mind, but under most circumstances we have our minds.

00:04:19 – The default mode network

Richie:From a neuroscientific perspective, we know that when a person is not engaged in a demanding activity that really requires their mental resources, what is active is a mode of brain function that we call the default mode.

The default mode is mostly associated with self-referential thought. By self-referential thought, we mean the narrative we tell ourselves about who we are and all the things associated with that.

And for a lot of people, that’s uncomfortable.

00:05:01 – Why awareness can feel uncomfortable at first

Richie:We have data from work we’ve done using our Healthy Minds program with beginning meditators who’ve never meditated before. We often see that after the first week or so of cultivating awareness, they actually become more anxious. They report more anxiety.

We think it’s not that they’re actually experiencing more anxiety, but that they’re noticing what’s going on in their mind. And what’s going on in their mind is often quite chaotic.

Simply becoming more aware of it makes them more anxious, or they perceive their anxiety more accurately for the first time. And so they report higher scores more accurately.

So I think one of the reasons people try to find strategies to get rid of boredom is because the chaotic nature of their own mind is uncomfortable.

I actually think this is why people engage in certain kinds of leisure activities that are cognitively demanding, but that don’t serve any other function other than being interesting leisure activities. For example, doing crossword puzzles or Sudoku.

There are a lot of people who spend a lot of time doing those things, and people report that they enjoy it. I think they enjoy it because it temporarily blocks the default mode. It temporarily engages other parts of their mind, so they’re not aware of the self-referential activity. They’re not aware of the narrative going on in the background.

00:06:52 – The body’s role in restlessness

Cortland:I’m curious about one thing I’d love to unpack from a scientific point of view: the relationship between these brain networks, specifically the default mode network that you talked about, and the rest of the nervous system.

If I think back to my teenage self sitting on the couch, which to me is the most intensely bored I can remember feeling in my life, I think at that time I was completely oblivious to what was going on in my mind.

When I remember that, I don’t remember the thought activity. Now, having meditated, I’m sure it was going on, but I just didn’t know how to attend to what was going on in my mind.

But what I do remember is the physicality. There was almost this charge of restless energy. I needed to release the energy, and it just had nowhere to go. You’re kind of just this ball of energy, and yet it’s like you’re trying to constrain a ball of energy that’s trying to get out, but there’s no release for it.

I’m imagining there are all sorts of things going on in the …

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