Boredom and How We Prevent It

Some people may feel stress, overwhelmed, or like too much is going on during the pandemic or a crisis, but what about those of us that now feel bored or restless now that there are restrictions to our daily activities which kept us out of the house and busy? Or what about those of us who are still overwhelmed and stressed, but used to look forward to activities that we now cannot do due to the pandemic? What can we replace those activities with? Look below for some strategies to help overcome restlessness during these crises.

There are actually a few strategies that we already went over for stress and worry that can now be used to curb boredom, so this should be review for you. Amazing, right? It's important to remember some strategies can be versitile and applied to many aspects in your life; it's how you frame the strategy onto the problem. 

For example, practicing genorosity can help you with restlessness. Here's a worksheet to remind you of what activities we can do to build happiness and genorosity. 

Reminding ourselves of our values can also be helpful in planning activities where we can practice genorosity or find purpose in our everyday lives. Here's a worksheet you can use to explore your values. 

Another past strategy we can use is focusing on things we can control. Brainstorming ways we can add control in our life can keep us busy and build a routine for us to feel less bored. You can use this worksheet to write down and determine the things you have control over and the things you can't control to strategize ways to introduce more control in your life based on your values.

We can also use gratitude exercises to bring in positivity in our life and also plan a variety of gratitude exercises everyday to focus on. Here is a worksheet that outlines a week-by-week schedule of gratuity.

One thing to do is to push yourself and continue activities you started or re-visit hobbies or interests you may have abandoned in the past. Even if you don't feel motivated or as interested as you might want to be, it is important to keep on and allow yourself to spend time on activities that keep you busy. It might be a book you started, but never finished. Maybe a hobby, like embroidering, you have been meaning to try. Even downloading a workout app and trying out one different workout everyday is meaningful. These activities can help us feel accomplished and rewarded.