Wasting time never used to be a challenge. You could read a rubbishy airport novel (the kind with titles that had raised letters in gold), take a nap, do a jigsaw puzzle, wander round the garden or simply stare into space. All these activities were reassuringly pointless. But nothing is pointless any more – no matter what you do an expert will pop up to tell you how it’s benefitting you in some way. This is bad news for the loafers of the world.
Apparently, reading any fiction at all increases emotional intelligence, benefits mental health, adds to your sense of well-being and wards of dementia. I have my doubts, though. How would reading a Steven King novel add to your emotional intelligence? It might give you an insight into the deranged mind, but I can’t see how it would benefit your mental health. Far from improving your sense of well-being, I think it would cause you to look at your fellow human beings with great suspicion and probably give you nightmares as well.
Which brings me to napping. Some studies have suggested that napping increases your heart health and mental alertness, improves performance and reduces mistakes. It almost takes the pleasure out of it, doesn’t it?
In lockdown I rediscovered my love of jigsaw puzzles. And I wasn’t the only one. So many people turned to jigsaws to pass the time and take their minds off what was happening in the outside world that suppliers couldn’t keep up with the demand. However, I have just learned, to my dismay, that doing jigsaw puzzles is not the waste of time I had always hoped. Apparently, it engages both sides of your brain at once – the right, supposedly creative side and the logical left one. It improves your short-term memory, enhances your spatial awareness, relieves stress, acts as a form of meditation and gives you a dopamine hit every time you slot a piece into place. People who do jigsaws supposedly live longer and are less likely to develop dementia. It also provides me with a physical workout since I spend a lot of time on my hands and knees looking under the sofa for missing pieces.
Surely wandering around the garden and staring into space are legitimate time wasters? No, they’re not. Sunlight gives you vitamin D and increases your serotonin levels, natural light helps you sleep, plant substances boost your immune system … the list goes on and on. Even staring into space is supposed to be beneficial, allowing neural networks to spark into action and increase your creativity. Perhaps the meditative quality of doing nothing increases your bone density, reduces visceral fat and lowers your cholesterol, but I wouldn’t know because I lost all interest in the subject at this point.
It may be contrary of me, but sometimes I just want to do something that will be of no benefit whatsoever. To myself or anyone else. Maybe I could organise my books by colour?
