Study shows link between boredom,
early death.
“Bored to death?” Maybe there really is such a thing.
In a commentary waiting to be
published in the International Journal of Epidemiology in April, experts say
there’s causal relationship between being bored and dying early.
Annie Britton and Martin Shipley
of the University College of London warned that boredom alone may not be the
killer – it could be the risky behavior like smoking, drinking, taking drugs,
or having a psychological problem that may cause the body to release bad
hormones that stress the heart.
Questionnaires distributed
between 1985 and 1988, participated by more than 7,500 London civil servants
aged 35-65. The participants asked if
they had felt boredom at work in the previous month. Britton and Shipley then tracked down how
many had died from the respondents and found that those who confirmed extreme boredom
were two and a half times as likely to die of heart-related problems than those
who did not report boredom.
But when the authors made a
statistical adjustment to other potential factors, like employment grade and
physical activity, they saw significant reduction in effect.
While the results are only
preliminary, other experts agree there could be a direct link between boredom
and dying early.
