6 Practical Solutions for When You’re Bored of Everything

Introduction

Being bored of everything can be as simple or as complex a problem as the individual involved; no two people are alike and these types of things often require a delicate approach.

In most cases, the most common reason for boredom is burnout.

Burnout is a rather loose term, though, it typically means you’re pushing yourself too hard or stretching yourself too far over many things without giving yourself enough time to unwind or reset.

Rest assured, it’s perfectly normal to feel boredom at some point in our lives and there are practical approaches you can take to mitigate the effects for when it does strike — let’s take a look.

A Practical Approach to Boredom and Burnout – 6 Tips To Mitigate Feelings of Boredom

1. Get Comfortable With Being Bored

This may seem counterintuitive, however, when you’re feeling extreme boredom it’s often because you’ve overexposed yourself to stimuli and your body simply needs to rest or switch off.

Given enough time, low stimulus activities such as reading or relaxing in bed can help restore your drive to try new things again or can help get you back into activities that you previously enjoyed.

Even simple things like taking a walk or sitting in your garden can give your body and mind exactly what they need to restore equilibrium.

It’s all too common in our modern society to always be switched on and keyed into everything that’s happening but humans have evolved in such a way that we won’t always respond positively to this type of stimulation.

Getting back to basics and getting comfortable with feelings of lower stimulation can be a great weapon to deal with feelings of extreme boredom; don’t underestimate it.

2. Be Mindful

Mindfulness is a term that’s tossed around quite commonly these days, however, most people don’t fully understand the meaning of the word or what it implies.

Simply put, being mindful means being aware of your thoughts and feelings at all times.

Alternatively, you can practice meditation where you’ll dedicate a certain slot of time to be mindful and practice your thought observations.

Why is this important?

Well, separating yourself from the emotional and irrational side of yourself (most likely to catastrophize), almost like an outside observer, can really help you to put those feelings of boredom into perspective.

It gives you a fresh lens to look through meaning you’ll usually be able to deal with things in a better way.

If you’re not sure where to start with mindfulness then we recommend trying a mindfulness app like Headspace or Calm as they’ll walk you through the process.

3. Try Something New

As a hobby website, we dedicate ourselves to providing the tools to find new hobbies, passions, and activities for you to try.

Basically, you’re in the best place to find something new if you’re bored of your current hobbies or if you want to see how you feel doing something else.

We have tons of lists to browse that you can find in our top lists section, however, you can also peruse our ultimate list of hobbies where you’ll find more than 300+ hobby ideas to try out.

Alternatively, if you’re just wanting general hobby advice then you can find it in our advice section.

We also have some sub-niches to explore such as our gaming section where you’ll find tons of great articles about gaming.

To draw a line under this then — boredom or burnout can often be a case of not trying out new things and simply becoming overexposed to existing things that you’re already engaged in.

If you think you’re bored of your current hobbies then we definitely recommend trying something new from one of our lists.

And no, we don’t mean social media.

Getting social means getting actively involved with dedicated communities for things you enjoy.

Like running? Join an outdoor running club. Cooking? Share your recipes and treats with others.

You can see where we’re going with this.

As a species, humans like to belong to a community as it gives us a sense of purpose and helps give perspective to the things we do.

If you’re feeling extreme boredom, there’s a high likelihood that you aren’t involving yourself in communal kinsmanship.

Other people are a measuring stick for your successes and failures, but they’re also there to keep things fresh and can lead you to unexpectedly positive places.

If you’re bored and often isolated then we highly recommend trying to be as social as possible, even if that means starting with family.

5. Do a Dopamine Detox

Okay, so dopamine detoxes have been debunked, however, the philosophical ethos behind them is sound and we believe it can help you to become more comfortable with less stimulating activities.

For example, most people who suffer from severe burnout and boredom are usually involved in highly addictive activities such as scrolling through social media, binge-watching Netflix, and playing hours of video games.

Suddenly, if you become desensitized to these activities (by doing them too much) you’ll be left feeling like nothing is as pleasurable and thus, extreme boredom ensues.

So, although the science has been debunked around dopamine detoxes, we believe that embracing the stoic nature of abstaining from highly addictive activities can really help to give you that want and drive back again.

To recap then, a dopamine detox means totally abstaining from pleasurable activities to allow yourself to resensitize to normal daily activities i.e. going for walks, visiting friends, and taking the time to read a book.

Give it a try and see how you feel; you may just find yourself with some fresh perspective after that’ll help restore your ambitions.

6. Study Philosophy

Being extremely bored can often be a matter of perspective rather than something that’s rooted in the physical world.

The pursuit of philosophy can help you understand the world around you and can help you to see it in many different lights.

When you really ask the question “what is boredom?”, it may dawn on you that it’s a belief that you’ve bought into rather than something that exists in reality.

It’s a construct of the human mind and you’ve chosen to go along with it.

It’s easy to let the mind hijack your thoughts and perceptions about things and boredom is no different.

If you’re bored of everything you may just be bored of the perspective you’re looking at things through.

If you wish to know more about philosophy then we highly recommend starting with stoicism as it’ll help you gain resilience to harsh feelings such as boredom– check out The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness by Jonas Salzgeber.

Conclusion

We’ve now fully explored some of the reasons why you may be bored of everything and what you can do about it.

Hopefully, this offers you some practical wisdom and guidance on how best to approach it and what might fit your particular circumstances best.

Don’t forget, if you enjoyed this article then feel free to add our homepage to your favorites for more general advice, hobby information, and niche-specific topics.