Bored to Death?

Have you ever felt bored? Ever found yourself with nothing engaging to do? Experienced a lack of interest in everything and everyone around you? Although not a pleasant state in which to find oneself, is boredom bad for health? In a rare moment of idleness one day, researchers pondered whether the expression 'bored to death' has any basis. Are people who are bored more likely to die earlier than those who are not?

In a International Journal of Epidemiology study, boredom levels were reported in the later versions of the baseline questionnaire (1985–88) of the Whitehall II cohort study. Participants were civil servants, based in London, aged 35–55 years. They were asked in a self-completed questionnaire about boredom during the past 4 weeks (response options were 'not at all', 'a little', 'quite a lot', 'all the time'). At the risk of participants becoming bored of answering this question, it was repeated at Phase 2 some 3 years later, but not since. Information on mortality was ascertained through the NHS Central Registry.

Follow-up for total mortality was available up to the end of April 2009. Excluding those with prevalent cardiovascular disease (CVD) at baseline, gave a sample size of 7524 men and women. Researchers found that those who report quite a lot or a great deal of boredom are more likely to be younger, to be women, to rate their health worse, to be in low employment grades and to report lower physical activity levels. We also found that those with a great deal of boredom were more likely to die during follow-up than those not bored at all. In particular, they were more likely to die from a CVD fatal event.

We conclude that those who report being bored are more likely to die younger than those who are not bored. Whilst some aspects of life may not be so easily modified (e.g. disease status or position in society), proneness to boredom, particularly in younger populations, could be indicative of harmful behaviors such as excessive drinking, smoking, taking drugs and low psychological profiles. Finding renewed interest in social and physical activities may alleviate boredom and improve health, thus reducing the risk of being 'bored to death'.