Some people never tire of doing the same thing, while others get bored very easily. According to Dr Irving Biederman, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, this problem involves opioids, a chemical in the brain that gives us pleasure.
A new experience will stimulate the release of opioids—a wow. The brain is hardwired[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3,5″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ] to seek out more. The human eye fixates on two points a second, looking for stimulation.
“Anything less is boring,” says Biederman. But once you’ve had an experience, some neurons essentially take over the job of responding to that piece of data, freeing neighbor neurons for other tasks. A second or third go round won’t give you the same rich opiod hit.
Fewer neurons are firing, and it’s been there, done that. The system makes the brain efficient, and according to Biederman, it also makes us crave stimulation. Being boredom-prone is somewhat hard-wired.
So how do we over come boredom?
One way is to like what we’re doing, so that we don’t mind repeating it over and over. There are lots of other ways to combat boredom but one just needs to put in some effort.
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