Not All Boredom Is the Same

Boredom is a familiar part of daily life: it hits while reading a dry philosophy text, watching a Disney movie with the kids for the hundredth time, or filling out endless paperwork.

Psychology researcher Erin C. Westgate argues that, like pain, boredom is a signal that something is off. But what to do about it depends on which kind of boredom is at work.

1. Two sources, two kinds of boredom

Westgate's MAC model says boredom has two sources:

One is a lack of meaning: the task has no clear goal or purpose, leaving the mind feeling hollow.

The other is an attentional mismatch: mental capacity and task difficulty are out of sync—either the task is too hard for the brain available, or too easy for a brain craving challenge.

Attentional boredom tends to bring mind-wandering and agitation; meaning-related boredom more often brings sadness, loneliness, a sense of time dragging, and a desire to disengage. Both can combine into 'mixed boredom'.

2. Match the cure to the cause

Westgate offers several strategies:

Adjust task difficulty: if it's too hard, break it into smaller steps; if too easy, set a timer and race against it.

Top up mental resources: sleep more, drink caffeine, or build skill over time. The time-honoured but suboptimal fix of drinking on the job to dull an understimulating task is not recommended.

Reappraise goal value: when meaning is lacking, link the task to long-term objectives—students focus better when they see how a task feeds into their bigger educational goals.

Switch activities: sometimes the best move is to quit. If understimulated, seek novelty and complexity; if overwhelmed, find something easy and fun. But making this a habit may mean dodging the hard cognitive work that builds capacity, leaving you more bored in the long run.

So when boredom hits, the first question is not how to kill it but what it's telling you.