Why Boring is Dangerous to Your Life

Why “Boring” Leads to Drugs, Drinking, or Smoking
• 1. Brainiacs only: what’s your brain made of? Answer: 78% water. Some of us have replaced the liquid with “fat”, hence the expression, “Fat-Head.”

• 2. “So what? Who-cares? What’s In-It-For-Me?

• 3. Your 3-lb brain requires continuous liquids to function optimally. Long-Livers drink a quart of juice of daily.
Did you know your 3-lb brain requires 22% of all the Oxygen & Glucose of your entire body?

• 4. “Two scientific reports: both conclude, catching yourself being bored, and not having a strategy for changing your thinking & feeling to active engagement with life, can endanger-your-life.”

• 5. “Consistent ‘boredom’ increases early death by 37%.
You don’t “die” of boredom, but of the habits you create to overcome ‘boredom’. Boredom causes stress, loss-of-
impulse control, & reduced “attention-span”.

• 6. Wait, addicted ‘gamblers’ need “immediate-gratification’ or they freak, and suffer ‘limited-attention- span’ as a defense-strategy. What do you do when you get bored?
Answer: seven hours daily of TV or messaging on your computer.

• 5. Don’t we tend to suck-in “junk-food,” and sugared liquids when we’re bored? Consistent boredom is a precursor to additions for drugs, alcohol or smoking.

• 6. Boredom is our throw-back to childhood, with its cry,
“Are we having FUN yet?”

• 7. “You’re exaggerating.”

• 8. “See research of John Eastwood of York University (Canada), in Journal, Perspectives on Psychological Science. His team says, “boredom is a failure in “one of the brain’s Attention networks.”

• 9. “Wait. One more. The mind tells us it’s NOT our fault. The cause of boredom is the “environment”. “This class is too boring, or it’s the droning instructor causing my ‘Sominex’ effect.”

• 10. “Here’s additional research by Martin Shipley, University of College, London. He followed 7,500 London civil servants, and those who admitted “boredom” occurred daily, had a serious problem.

• 11. Those who suffered from this ‘foolish’ complaint “were more than 2 ½ times more likely to die of a heart problem.” They were followed over the next 20-years, and it was obvious, boredom was a marker for early death.

• 12. “Question: what do you do to overcome feelings of boredom?”

• 13. “First is watching TV. It switches the brain into Alpha brainwaves of relaxation, so you semi-sleep the time away. Second, is having whining conversations about the
lack of excitement.”

• 14. “Try this one. Use the boring time to write a “to-do-list” for home or work. This is a counter-strategy to wasting the time.”

• 15. New research, January 9, 2013 by Dr. Sandi Mann, University of Central Lancashire (UK). She says to be thankful for boredom at work because it motivates the brain for Creativity through Daydreaming. It is easy to activate your imagination, especially when “reading”.

• 16. “The secret is to ask yourself an open-ended question that leads to activating your memory for past successes.

• 17. “Can you remember your first diploma, or promotion at work? How did it make you feel? What were the sounds, smells, and what did it look like? Boredom disappears in seconds as you create your mental-movie.”

Endwords

Consistent boredom can be a symptom of losing control over your Attention-System. You can give in and binge junk-food to pass the time, or see it as a gift to activate your creative skills. Choose to: “Turn-on, Tune-in, and Tap-in”.

See ya,
Copyright © 2013, Bernard Wechsler
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