Boredom is painful

Although Boredom-is-fuel-for-creativity because it engages the Diffused-Mode part of our brain, we as humans find it very difficult to be bored. Boredom can be physically and mentally painful.

A famous study (Wilson, Reinhard, Westgate et al, 2014) showed that participants would prefer to give themselves electric shocks rather than be bored for 15 minutes. The boredom was less painful than any sort of stimulation, even if it involved physical pain.

References

• Wilson, Reinhard, Westgate et al (2014) # Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1250830