Julie Legg and Jel Legg discuss ADHD and boredom – despite having a busy mind, we still can experience boredom in various situations, often to our surprise.
They chat about their personal experience of boredom in ADHD, describing it as a struggle with motivation rather than simply having nothing to do. They discuss “trapped boredom,” which arises in situations with little control, and “freedom boredom,” where multiple options fail to spark interest. Both types can heighten frustration, procrastination, or impulsivity, and often require specific coping strategies.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Understanding Boredom in ADHD: Boredom isn’t just about having nothing to do—it’s about a lack of motivation or focus. It can stem from being stuck in a situation (trapped boredom) or having too many options but no drive (freedom boredom).
- Challenges of Boredom: ‘Trapped boredom’ can trigger frustration, zoning out, or distractions like fidgeting. ‘Freedom boredom’ often results from low dopamine, making it hard to start or enjoy activities and leading to guilt or procrastination.
- Strategies to Manage Boredom: Tools like fidget toys, doodling, or breaking tasks into smaller chunks can help, along with rest as self-care or revisiting old hobbies to spark interest.
- Perspective on Boredom: Recognize that boredom is natural, not unique to ADHD, and can sometimes be an opportunity for rest or rediscovery.
LINKS
- Julie is the author of THE MISSING PIECE: A Woman’s Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing and Living with ADHD (Harper Collins, 2024)
TRANSCRIPT
JULIE: I’m Julie Legg, author of The Missing Piece and diagnosed with ADHD at 52.
JEL: And I’m Jel Legg, diagnosed at 55.
JULIE: Welcome to ADHDifference. In this episode we’ll be talking about ADHD and boredom. I used to say that my mind was so busy that I never had a chance to get bored but that isn’t always the case.
JEL: No, and I think there are lots of things that ADHD folks like us struggle with and boredom is pretty much up there in the top three maybe the top five. But I think it’s useful to define what boredom is. So, we’ve been thinking about this, obviously we’ll pre-chat before we record these, and really, we think boredom comes down to a lack of motivation or focus to do something. It doesn’t necessarily mean there is nothing to do. It’s just finding that energy with these busy minds to focus it onto something and, with that in mind, I think it’s good to try to define two types of general areas where boredom can creep in. One being where you’re trapped in a situation, such as a work meeting or a waiting room, waiting for something that you can do nothing about and so you don’t have options to go do other things, like go for a walk or take up, or pick up your hobby or whatever. And the other type of boredom is where you’re completely free from any constraints and you can do whatever you like. And you have a range of things sat there and you just don’t feel like doing any of them.
JULIE: An example of this trapped boredom, I remember as a teenager feeling trapped or confined to the property. My parents were busy at the time and it would be raining, and I’d think “Ah what can I do?” and I wrote down a big list of rainy-day things to do so I would never get bored. But actually, while all of those things were of interest to me, so for example it might have been write a poem, or dig out the paintbrushes, or break your skipping record in the garage, you know things I could do when it was raining, but yet while it was of interest to me when the time came sometimes I’d go “No, I’m just not interested in doing those things,” and then I got into a space of boredom. And I felt quite trapped because I couldn’t go beyond the confines of the property. So that’s another example, a younger version perhaps of the office equivalent.
JEL: Yeah, so as I alluded to a couple of examples at the beginning, being trapped in a meeting or trapped in a space like a waiting room, waiting for a train that isn’t coming, or a bus that’s late, or and the worst one would be perhaps, waiting in casualty where you could be there eight hours sometimes depending on where you live and what your health service is like. But let’s take the example of being in a meeting. You’re stuck there for one maybe two hours listening to very, very dull people talking about dull things that you’ve got no interest in, but you have to be at this meeting. Unfortunately, in these podcasts we tried to come up with some ideas of how to cope with that but I can’t for the life for me think how you cope with that. How I’ve coped with that, it’s not a coping mechanism, but what I will do is I will zone out completely and so my eyes will start looking around patent for patterns in the room or shapes and things, and I try to engage my brain with that and then eventually that’s not enough. And so, I literally my eyes fix and stare in the distance and I don’t hear anything.
JULIE: So that’s one trait, you know, the boredom is being replaced now with zoning out and none of them is very, are very productive in a meeting situation. But you’re right. Something else steps in and I think it’s because, you know, again when we talk about dopamine, and dopamine or interest drives our dopamine seeking type behaviour, and it’s probably more interesting counting the holes and you know those ceiling tiles, and you count them all, and you try and multiply it by so many times, but you’re not concentrating on the speaker in the meeting. [Not at all.] You’re not taking notes. You’ve missed the whole …
JEL: I’m trying to work out how the ceiling stays up. Such a large expansive room perhaps, and how did they build that, and what sort of material … you know, the brain does not stop thinking. It’s always looking for something and when … and that’s a trapped situation, when you’d much rather be doing anything else. But my brain’s always trying to think of something, or do something.
JULIE: Okay, now I’ll just jump in here. I know we go “Gosh, what the heck do you do in that situation?” but there are people, and those that I wrote about in the book too, they have fidget toys, or they doodle on their pad. And it’s just … it’s almost one distraction like a fidget toy can actually help you focus in another area. It does allow your brain I guess to multitask and do things. So, fidget toys and doodling is good. The other one too, someone had noted they like to be the note taker. They’ll volunteer to be the note taker, but they don’t get an opportunity to get bored. They’re too busy concentrating and listening. So yeah, I thought that was quite a good one.
JEL: I think that’s a good solution. Now as we’ve mentioned before, we’re not ADHD coaches and we’re not trying to be ADHD coaches. And in fact, I’m sure some coaches out there have some great solutions when you’re in these trapped situations. So, if I’m waiting at a doctor’s surgery or something, and it’s invariably running half an hour late, I drum. I air drum and I start playing patterns on my feet. I’m not a drummer but I’m working out patterns on my feet and then I, you know, I think it’s used to be St Vitus Dance when you can’t keep your legs still which I generally can’t, but I’m actually trying to work patterns out. And you know, you try reading the magazines and generally they’re real low rent magazines, they’re not interesting. You try everything you can. Ironically, if I find a magazine that is interesting, then I’m lost and it’s like “I hope don’t call me soon, I want to finish this article.” A number of times I’ve asked to take the magazine home but, it is ultimately what it’s causing that trapped situation, it causes a rise in anxiety. And it’s particularly not very helpful if you’re at the doctors, you know you’re going to get your blood test, your blood pressure testing, when you go in because it does for me, it raises the anxiety and the frustration. And that, we’ve talked about this before, or we will talk about it at some point, this thing that how fairness really matters to us and it’s terribly unfair when you’re trapped in that situation. So, I’m not giving perhaps a lot of great solutions myself but at least acknowledging it’s particularly difficult for people with ADHD. We don’t know what it’s like not to have ADHD, so maybe other people can sit in that room for two hours and think this a great way of getting paid. “I just sit here. I don’t have to take any responsibility.” One of the things I can tend to do in a meeting is I … if I focus too much on what’s being said, I’m likely to be an agitator. I’m likely to ask a difficult question. Absolutely and I’m likely to sort of, right, just shake it up a bit. Throw something into the mix, just to try to get some interest in and engagement, whether that’s productive, useful, or adds value I don’t know, but it’s fun.
JULIE: Another kind of trapped environment could be considered the workplace itself and if you have a job, where aspects of it could be considered in your eyes mundane, that’s really tough too. A lot of ADHDers will say that administrative work can … filing or something quite repetitive, can be quite boring to them and they’d want to skip on and do something else. So, I understand repetitiveness, for me, isn’t much fun either and I want something more challenging to stretch my brain, or just anything to mix it up. And I guess if you have an opportunity to, that is the best thing in that situation, to break down the filing into small chunks, so you can have a bit of fun. Have a purposeful project to work on in between the moments when you are filing, and hopefully that would even some things out.
JEL: And that’s a good one Julie, because that highlights you’ve got short-term but boredom that can be an hour or two, and then you’ve got this concept of this long-time, long-term boredom where months and months and months pass and you say “I’m bored of my job. I’m bored of my job.” Now, we are not in a very good economic situation in this country at the moment, so it’s not easy just to walk out of a job. So, I’d never advise someone “It’s, ohh, just change jobs. It’s simple.” It’s not simple. So, you’ve got to find ways really of getting through that. I don’t know, maybe you will be allowed to do those repetitive tasks with headphones on. Sometimes health and safety won’t let you do that, but if you can then you can be listening to podcasts, if you can do two things at once. It is difficult. It is challenging. We all have jobs we get bored of, no matter how interesting the jobs might have been when we started. If they’re repetitive then I don’t know whether it’s a question of giving yourself a good talking to and see if you do have the opportunity to move on into a different job, or try to do, volunteer to do something in that job, to make it more interesting.
JULIE: Oh, I think our ADHD brains too, you know, we’ve … we should use it to its best ability too, not just sit and wallow in some of the negative traits. I think what we are really good at is mixing things up and to create different ways of doing things. It’s way more fun than a traditional way. That might be quite instinctive for us to do that anyway but we can make some boring jobs a little bit more fun, whether it’s having the radio on if we’re able to do that in a work environment, or definitely at home, or just turning up the music again when you’re in home to do the vacuuming that otherwise would be a somewhat of a boring chore. Or, just turning things upside down and doing things slightly differently.
JEL: But certainly, in employment, some jobs really are just completely boring all the time. I’ve been lucky that I haven’t found myself, well no I don’t think I’ve really done those sorts of jobs. I mean perhaps being on a production line where you’re doing the same thing every day, all the time. I can think of some people. Once saw an assorting recycling centre, whose job was to pick out the things that weren’t suitable for recycling. Well, I really, really hope they had headphones on because I don’t think anyone with or without ADHD could do that for a very long time without, I mean … [Oh, you could make that fun though, couldn’t you?] It didn’t look like anyone was having fun to me, but you know, if you’re really stuck in that sort of job but then, and you do have an opportunity, I’d probably rather if I were in that situation go out and do a job that empty bins around a park or something, or swept and did you know, sort of work in a park. At least being outside there’s more variety of things to change because, it’s sometimes it’s not just the task it’s the environment you’re in. So, you could have quite a boring job but if you’re in an interesting environment, no two days are the same. So, with ADHD it’s recognizing it. You don’t have to have the highest paid, most skilled job, and most exciting job in the world. It’s perhaps recognizing the environment you’re doing that job in and what suits your ADHD mind. Agreed. I mean, around here the other day I read of a guy who is a road sweeper in Britain. He’s been doing it for years and he absolutely loves his job. Now some people will find that incredibly boring but no two days are the same. It’s just going to be amazing – the people he says hello to, the people he meets, the things he finds, the things he sees. So yeah.
JULIE: So, we’ve talked about the trapped boredom, so in a meeting or in a work environment, so let’s talk about the freedom boredom, when we actually have the freedom to do whatever we want to. Let’s say it’s a glorious, sunny weekend and yet we still manage to be bored from time to time.
JEL: Okay, so I thought a lot on this one. We say we’re bored but it’s not necessarily we’re bored, if we’ve got the choice to do anything we want. And at any given point, most of us in our lives have a number of options and none of them necessarily have to cost money, or a small amount of money. So, it might be go for a walk, go for a swim, tidy up the house, do a little bit on the hobby that you have, read an interesting book. There are so many things you can do but if we don’t want to do any of them, we say “I’m bored.” It’s not true we’re bored. We’re just not motivated. Now, at the heart of our ADHD, constantly all day long, is this dopamine deficiency and this need to get a dopamine hit. When I’m in that situation with all these things I could do and I’m not motivated to do any of them, I just think it’s really being worn out and tired. I just think that brain, my brain’s been working so hard for so long and firing all the time, it all it does not find peace, it does not go to sleep, but it doesn’t seem to be able to just focus itself in a direction to be able to get the dopamine hit. And so it’s almost a sense of sadness creeps in and so I’ve learned you can have a day where you actually achieve nothing and do nothing. That’s the antithesis to the ADHD brain that wants to always achieve something every day and keep buzzing. It’s okay just to do nothing.
JULIE: And maybe that’s a really nice self-care way to recharge your batteries. I know recharging batteries for us, often it’s in a social environment with like-minded others, quite high energy, and that helps maintain our battery level. But other times, yeah just being by yourself without any external pressures, I guess. And if that’s sitting down watching telly, gosh we haven’t done that for a long time but something similar.
JEL: Because I mean, for example in my case, I can go into my studio which is a fascinating place to spend time. I switch it all on, right okay … not motivated. What a complete waste of time. Turn it all off go, turn on another computer, do something different, or go into the garage put my grots on (we’ve got dirty clothes in order to go and build something) just don’t feel like doing it. So, I can actually put myself through the process of all these different things and it gets frustrating and you start to feel guilty. But ultimately, you’re working out what you need to do is nothing. And one of the ways we remind ourselves of nothing is actually quite an important thing to do is, on a rare occasion, so we’ll go away for the weekend and so we can’t do anything that we have at home that keeps us highly interested. So, we don’t watch television, can’t stand television. It’s just terrible in New Zealand but we’ll switch on the worst television we can find and just have fun watching it and laugh at it but that’s part of doing nothing. Yes. That’s a waste of a day when we’re at home but when we’re away that’s part of truly unwinding and relaxing. Yeah. Letting that rubbish just swoop over you and not caring what comes next, or being particularly bothered, or you know. “I don’t have any standards just play me some rubbish,” you know.
JULIE: Now boredom itself isn’t listed in the criteria for the DSM for ADHD diagnosis. [Nor should it be everyone gets bored.] Correct, everybody does but you’ll see that ripple through with some other ADHD traits and we’re talking about procrastination can come in when we’re yeah, really don’t want to do the boring task, or the unfulfilling purposeless task or whatever it may be. Or, something that’s too challenging and our head’s not in the right space but also impulsivity. And I think you know, when we’re bored, we’re more likely to do something a little impulsive and that might not end in positive results, positive outcomes.
JEL: So yeah, that’s important to point out that being bored is not a sign of ADHD. Everyone gets bored. When we get bored, I think it can be a bit of a shock for us if our … a brain’s running like a motor all the time and it’s always firing off and it finds everything and anything interesting and we’re just … our brain’s hyper, and then suddenly we hit a day where we’re not motivated, that’s the word, which then feels like boredom. But actually, that’s quite a shock to our system because it’s out of character. It’s really out of character.
JULIE: And actually, it might not be an all-day boredom thing. It might just be five minutes of “Oh I can’t be bothered. Oh, what am I going to do,” but more so than not so, we’re more likely just to just wander out in the garden and find ourselves picking flowers, and cutting herbs, and trimming a tree, and finding that the pheasants laid some eggs, you know, behind the agapanthus, or whatever it may be. So, it doesn’t, you know, it’s almost distracting yourself by putting yourself into another environment. All of a sudden there’s no chance for boredom because something is going to probably come along and snatch some interest.
JEL: Under the ‘freedom to do what we like’ section of boredom, I think another one can creep in is if you overdo something, say a computer gamer. I’m not particularly but if you find yourself several days into playing a game which initially was giving you the dopamine hits, it may not give you the same dopamine hits if you’ve been over-exposed to it for too long. It’s almost like you need to find something else to have a break from it and that is a valuable thing, to come back to get the dopamine hit the game was originally giving you.
JULIE: I can also give an example with ancestry. I love ancestry and we have for decades, you know, claw through dates and photos, looking and looking for clues and I can lose myself for days on end. But other times I’ll jump on assuming that I’ll have the same interest and focus, and it’s just not there. And I actually go “Hmmmm. I don’t really have the joy in it today,” which is quite strange isn’t it, not having the joy that something that brought you yesterday gave you.
JEL: Yeah, I mean it’s strange if you look at it very, as a very cold simple fact-based thing, but we’re complex creatures full of motivation and emotions. Action, reward, dopamine. Are we getting the dopamine from … okay to get the dopamine from anything you have to put a bit of effort in, so in order to get the dopamine here for finding a missing piece in the puzzle, genealogy, you have to put a bit of extra effort in. Sometimes you can put a lot of effort in and get no hit and if keep doing that, again and again, that back to almost like this gaming all the time and getting frustrated, you know it’s not good for you. You do need to find a way to get the dopamine. But, going back to what I saying earlier, if you’ve got one of those days where nothing is going to just click then just let your brain rest. I know that’s almost a wrong word to say to someone with ADHD but just do nothing because that in itself is something. You generally will find you’ll recharge and you’ll sometimes at the end of the day when it’s too late, suddenly you get this energy and “I’ll start doing that. Well, it’s going to be dark in hour,” but you might find the next day you’ve genuinely recharged. That’s not something we get to do an awful lot because we’re not known for chilling or relaxing or lot are we?
JULIE: And when you say “do nothing” it actually is something. Nothing is something. Absolutely. But nothing actually isn’t nothing. You wouldn’t just sit in sit in a chair and sleep … oh well maybe you could, you could but the odds are it’s something relatively, I don’t know how would you describe ….?
JEL: Change the word ‘nothing’ to ‘something.’ Replace them with passive and [there you go]. Proactive. One is that when you yeah, you’re just receiving entertainment and the other one is where you’re creating your own entertainment. So, it’s a passive … watching television or Netflix all day is a passive thing.
JULIE: And that’s really interesting because both Jel and myself, we’re quite producers of things. We actually don’t like consuming a heck of a lot. We’d rather produce it the other way around and so yeah, turning the tables and consuming yeah, that is different, isn’t it? That does feel like a rest.
JEL: That’s interesting yeah, because probably another subject in its own right but, we spend most of the day producing as we don’t consume. We don’t have, watch … the television’s never on in the day or Netflix is never on in the day, ever. No matter how interesting something is we’re watching, that last half an hour before we turn the lights off and go to sleep is Netflix. And most people would say “Hey, you shouldn’t do that because, you know, that’s an exciting series you’re watching. That’s hardly conducive to going to sleep.” It’s perfect for our brains because we’ve gone from being proactive and creating all day, now to just “Entertain me,” and the brain literally does just get lost in whatever’s on, and it works. It’s like reading a book for the last half an hour, except reading a book is not being entertained. You’re actually having to put some effort in. So, I’m saying that last half an hour of the day of Netflix relaxes our minds and we go to sleep very quickly and sleep well. Well, perhaps sometimes you need a whole day of doing that, just accepting. If you cannot find a single thing that and “I’m bored,” you’re not motivated. “I’m bored,” you’re not motivated. So, have a nothing day.
JULIE: Yeah, or a … what did we say, “Nothing is something, and something is passive.” [A passive, nothing, something day.] Oh, there you go. So, that’s boredom and breaking it down into trapped boredom and freedom boredom.
JEL: And short-term boredom and then the long-term boredom, and recognizing they’re very different things and one you perhaps can’t do much about, just grit your teeth and hold on, and the other one well you can do something about, potentially.
JULIE: Thanks for listening.