Understimulated: Too bored to work
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2020
- Have you ever been so bored that you just cannot work? You can't seem to get anything done, because it's just so boring that it becomes painful, and it becomes impossible to choose to continue doing the boring work without some kind of stimulation.
And anybody who's that had any kind of addiction can understand just that feeling of boredom and emptiness, and it's just unbearable to not be stimulated. [...]
Stimulation.
We have this need for it.
So to run away from boredom and to avoid this kind of empty feeling, we look for more stimulation.
We look for anything that can give us that hit of excitement.
As we do this more, then we need it even more.
It becomes even harder to get that stimulation.
The feeling without it feels even more empty. [...]
So by filling ourselves with stimulation, we are raising the threshold, or raising the baseline of what we consider to be an ordinary level of stimulation.
And yet, if we're going to do meaningful work, do difficult work, take steps to improve our lives, live better lives, change things, make valuable things, and do good, it seems like there's no way to do that without going into sometimes being bored, sometimes being very bored.
Being able to do things that are difficult, uncomfortable, unstimulating, unsatisfying in the moment, and they only become satisfying later, a long time later sometimes, after we're able to make useful work out of them.
But when you're accustomed to the excitement of a flashing video game or a scrolling social media feed, it's so difficult to put that aside and really focus on even just doing an hour of work where you get no rewards, there's no blinking lights telling you you've achieved anything, there's no pinging notification from your friends with some kind of message.
There's no stimulation.
It's simply you and your work, and the boredom is unbearable. [...]
So I see two ways to adjust the situation.
We can either lower our threshold of stimulation, or we can raise the stimulation level of the "boring" work that we have to do and choose to do.
So our stimulation level, our baseline level, is conditioned in us by everything that we do.
So if we're accustomed to feeding ourselves with our addiction, with our simulation, then we're gonna have a high level of baseline stimulation.
So it seems like the only way to bring that down is the painful, uncomfortable, long, boring process of removing the stimulation, stepping away, either reducing or taking breaks from or quitting entirely the things that give us excitement and stimulation without adding any useful benefit to our lives.
Things that keep us excited and happy in the moment - if you can use the word "happy" for some kind of a stimulation; we're entertained, we're occupied in the moment, we're "unbored" for a moment - but things that take away from our ability to actually make better lives.
All these habits that accustom us to the high baseline stimulation.
That's the slow process of training ourselves off them.
If we do less of them, then we can become used to having a lower level of stimulation as our baseline.
Although it really sucks to lose all that great stimulation that we're filling our lives with, the trade-off is that we can actually become more capable of doing anything else.
Anything else in the world other than the addiction becomes easier, as we have this lower base stimulation level.
I mean, you just imagine the extreme of it, like being high on drugs while playing an exciting video game and a social media feed buzzing at you, and maybe throw on some TV shows, some videos, you know, full sensory overload, hyperstimulation, coming at you all day.
Imagine then it's time for you to do some boring work.
It would be so difficult to pull yourself away from that.
But taking away those stimuli one after another, cutting down, if you imagine the opposite extreme: sitting in an empty room, and there's nothing there - maybe you could have nice sun shining through the window - and just an empty room.
Now, in this completely unstimulating environment, the thought of doing some kind of boring work, it's a little bit more tolerable. [...]
If we can connect the work with something that matters to us, make it feel like doing this so-called boring work is actually part of this great project that we really care about, really want to do, then it's no longer quite as boring and painful to do, because now it is connected to this game of life, to this thing that we actually want to do.
And then, even if the activity itself is still boring, it is connected to something that we actually care about. [...]
We start to be able to do useful things out of that boring work.
And then, almost sneaking in, out of nowhere, it just seems like life starts to get better as we start to build in better things.
#boredom #addictionrecovery #overstimulated
I am bored at work because everyone fears to lose their job if they share their work with me 😊
Alright I'll give it a try. Thank you so much for writing the video content in the description word for word. I would have never been able to sit and listen to it all.
I like this video. One thing though about lowering stimuli is that if you have codepression or anxiety - ruminating in own thoughts of worthlessness or daydreaming could be more satisfying than choosing for example school work when bored. So I think a combination of both might be good then: lower stimuli that takes away focus + making the Boring task more so the stimuli of that gets heighten.
Do you mean that with depression/anxiety, reducing stimulation could lead to more rumination and daydreaming?
I've recently been experimenting with ambient background tracks, like ambient office noise or nature noise, which provide some very basic stimulation without being too distracting.
There seems to be a similar phenomenon with food: having easy access to hyper-palatable foods creates a kind of "dependence", where whole foods (even tasty ones like steak, eggs, potatoes, fruit, etc.) become less satisfying. Also, most people don't intentionally go without food for a day or two, but even "boring" food becomes incredibly delicious when you are without it for a chunk of time. Reminds me of that Zen saying... something like, "Sights dull the eyes, scents dim the acuity of smell, ..." Something like that, anyway. Haha, great video! Thank you! ^_^
Makes me think of the philosopher Epicurus, who believed life is all about pleasure, and for that reason ate bread and water. When he wanted a real feast, he added some cheese.
@@QuestforaMeaningfulLife I like that! I may not have that level of austerity, but I typically don't indulge in "treat foods"... The other thing that is true for me: the more occasional the indulgence, the more satisfying it actually seems to be :)
I have ADHD (dopamine deficiency), further I was taking SSRI (which also reduced dopamine production) before my ADHD diagnosis.Before I tghought that I was overstimulated by the social media at first. I was very slugish and hestitant to do anything productive. Furthermore I could sleep at the weekends for 20 h doing some boring mildly boring tasks. So really in some cases it's hard to know what's the real issue before making a verdict. I think the issue is with the quality of the stimulation. It's good to do some productive and be at the same time stimulated. Social media is just trashy dopamine than many people are willing to take where's theres no better alternatives in life.
Yeah seems like we have to make a special effort to find higher quality dopamine sources, because electronic sources are just too easy. How do you go about finding those better sources of stimulation?
Looking at my perspective the most stimulating for me is problem solving which gives me some satisfaction and is productive on achievng my goals. I work at the academia so there is almost constant problem solving. Altough the most problematic for me is when I get stuck at something or doing something boring Like doing the reports. In those moments i use social media the most and i need a boost to do again something productive.
I think for anything boring, we need to find a way to connect it to something interesting. Even if it's as limited as counting the dollars that I'm making, to be used towards something I care about. I also get some stimulation from various atmospheric ambience audio/video, like live video of Earth from the space station
@Frederik Zimakoff speaking of dopaminę and motivaton. I've found na usefull video why IT is not good for ADHD.
ruclips.net/video/NtKGXHh5HZo/видео.html
Good stuff man thank you , very insightful
This helped me understand my understimulation a lot better. Feel like I can visualize/gamify my standard in a more positive way/make it easier to reduce certain things in my life by listening to you. Thank you!
Glad to hear it! Bringing some of that "game" feeling into real life has made a big difference for me. I really believe we should be "playing" our lives at least as much as grinding, even when we're simply doing mundane practical tasks.
Yes
Feels like I'm working for someone unrelated to me, like they come from some foreign ethnireligious tribe.
I think we have to feel in some way like our work is benefiting ourselves, our family, our people. Even if it's just through whatever you buy with the money you're paid.
*sigh* this is the unfortunate answer: learn how to sit down and be bored
Being OK with being bored sometimes seems to make us stronger. We can take a break from entertainment and pleasure and get some useful tasks completed before chasing the next amusement.
This boredom is painful