Turns Out You Actually Can Be Bored To Death

A study conducted by researchers at University College London shows that boredom can kill you. The researchers found that people who reported feeling a great deal of boredom were 37 per cent more likely to have died by the end of the study. Martin Shipley, who co-wrote the report said, "The findings on heart disease show there was sufficient evidence to say there is a link with boredom."

I don't believe it....

[mseeger]

If boredom could kill, the german military in the 80's would have run casualties higher than at Stalingrad. I've never been so bored before or after ever. You were given a task that would you take 5min at a crawling pace, 4 hours of time and the order not to leave the room while being denied anything to read and bereft of all company. If boredom could kill, i would have been a casualty then.....

Re:Video at 11

[profplump]

Exercise does not defeat boredom, at least not in the broad strokes you paint. It might help some people, and it certainly has physiological and mental health benefits for most people, but it's absurd to say that exercise prevents or treats boredom as a general rule.

For one thing, if you make exercise an unvarying part of your daily routine it might actually be a part of your boredom, and stopping the excise might help relieve your boredom by virtue of changing your routine.

I also think you'd find a more than a few people who would find exercise itself boring, whether it's part of a routine or not. Riding an elliptical for 2 hours a day can be mind-numbingly dull; not that there aren't more interesting methods for exercise, but use of an elliptical is definitely a form of exercise, and not a terribly exciting activity for most people.

You're also missing the possibility the boredom is a symptom of already poor health -- it's possible that self-reported boredom is the result of some other factor (lifestyle or otherwise) that results in lower longevity, rather than being the cause of lower longevity. Or that boredom, as a self-reported mental state, might reflect knowledge of a lower-than-average lifespan based on genetic, economic, social, or other factors. Or that the link found in this one study is ephemeral and does not reflect a general link between boredom and longevity at all.

Stress results from Boredom

[Hairy1]

It has already been established that stress can kill. The most stressful periods of my life have been when I have been bored. If you are bored it generally means you are under utilized. Knowing this you will be quite stressed. Besides, having nothing to do is like sensory deprivation, a psychological form of torture. This it is not terribly surprising that people who are "bored" also tend to end up stressed, and ultimately dead.