--- title: Being Bored Can Be Good for You—If You Do It Right. Here’s How description: Boredom can be a good thing. The benefits of boredom include creativity, problem-solving and better mental health. Here's how to be bored. canonical: https://time.com/5480002/benefits-of-boredom/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-01-04T16:54:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T22:16:48.260Z article:section: Health og:title: Being Bored Can Be Good for You—If You Do It Right og:description: Here's how og:url: https://time.com/5480002/benefits-of-boredom/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4a2ef091a682be9/69887b48cd1bba21b26ff2eb/confusion-2-mental-health-self-betterment.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2500 og:image:height: 1406 og:image:alt: confusion-2-mental-health-self-betterment-motto-stock og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Being Bored Can Be Good for You—If You Do It Right twitter:description: Here's how twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4a2ef091a682be9/69887b48cd1bba21b26ff2eb/confusion-2-mental-health-self-betterment.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Being Bored Can Be Good for You—If You Do It Right. Here’s How > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Jan 4, 2019 4:54 PM UTC  Peechaya Burroughs for TIME  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Jan 4, 2019 4:54 PM UTC If you’re waiting for brilliance to strike, try getting bored first. That’s the takeaway of [a study](https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amd.2017.0033) published recently in the journal _Academy of Management Discoveries_, which found that boredom can spark individual productivity and creativity. In the study, people who had gone through a boredom-inducing task — methodically sorting a bowl of beans by color, one by one — later performed better on an idea-generating task than peers who first completed an interesting craft activity. (The task: to come up with excuses for being late that wouldn’t make someone look bad.) The bored folks outperformed the artists both in terms of idea quantity and quality, as ranked by objective outsiders who assigned uniqueness scores to each one. Those findings are likely no surprise to Sandi Mann, a senior psychology lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire in the U.K. Mann is the author of _The Upside of Downtime: Why Boredom Is Good_, and a proponent of embracing the emotion, negative connotations and all. Here’s why being bored can be a good thing for your mind, imagination and productivity, and how to do it right. ## Boredom sparks creativity At its core, boredom is “a search for neural stimulation that isn’t satisfied,” Mann says. “If we can’t find that, our mind will create it.” As demonstrated by the new study and [plenty others before it](http://time.com/money/4919161/being-bored-at-work-is-actually-a-good-thing-research-says/), boredom can enable creativity and problem-solving by allowing the mind to wander and [daydream.](http://time.com/110304/the-importance-of-daydreaming/) “There’s no other way of getting that stimulation, so you have to go into your head,” Mann says. You may be surprised by what you come up with when you do. ## Boredom is good for your mental health Daydreaming can be “quite a respite” and provide a brief escape from day-to-day life, Mann says. But it’s also beneficial to simply step away from screens, work and other stressors long enough to feel bored. Studies have shown, for example, that modern tools including [work emails](http://time.com/5364730/work-emails-mental-health/), [social media](http://time.com/5172989/exercise-social-media-psychology/) and[ dating apps](http://time.com/4440862/tinder-online-dating-self-esteem-2/) can strain mental health — so taking a break can be a valuable opportunity to recharge. ## How to be bored the right way Mann says it’s important not to conflate boredom with relaxation. A purposefully tranquil activity, such as [yoga or meditation](http://time.com/4822302/yoga-meditation-genes-stress/), likely doesn’t meet the definition of trying and failing to find stimulation. To tap into true boredom, she suggests picking an activity that requires little or no concentration — like walking a familiar route, swimming laps or even just sitting with your eyes closed — and simply letting your mind wander, without music or stimulation to guide it. It’s also crucial to unplug during this time, Mann says. Our cultural attachment to our phones, she says, is paradoxically both destroying our ability to be bored, and preventing us from ever being truly entertained. “We’re trying to swipe and scroll the boredom away, but in doing that, we’re actually making ourselves more prone to boredom, because every time we get our phone out we’re not allowing our mind to wander and to solve our own boredom problems,” Mann says, adding that people can [become addicted](http://time.com/4845660/stop-phone-addiction/) to the constant dopamine hit of new and novel content that phones provide. “Our tolerance for boredom just changes completely, and we need more and more to stop being bored.” Next time you find yourself in line at the grocery store, in a tedious meeting or killing time in a waiting room, resist the urge to scroll. 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