Bored to death?

Have you ever felt bored (Fig 1)? 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, we 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? 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, by using their unique NHS identification number. 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.