Boredom and Its Related Health Effects During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Social isolation and confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic has, unsurprisingly, led to an uptick in boredom. As restrictions lift in some parts of the world and daily routines begin to be peppered with out-of-the-house activities again, we will likely see boredom levels decrease. I imagine they’ll decrease slowly, like when you get stuck on a slide at the playground you’ve outgrown, since restrictions are lifted as painstakingly slow (rightfully so!) as peeling an onion layer by layer.

But what about the effects of boredom? Will they piggyback on boredom as it takes the slow slide? Boredom is not an isolated state. It has other mental and physical health consequences, and those likely won’t be as easy to reverse as it is to quell boredom with that thing we used to do for fun before the pandemic. In other words, the long-term effects of boredom will take longer to recover from.

In this post, I write about what makes us prone to boredom and how boredom impacts us mentally. I also propose some analysis of this in the context of confinement in the COVID-19 pandemic, pose ideas on what we should learn from this unprecedented (are you tired of hearing that word yet?) situation, and offer one simple strategy to mitigate boredom.