Labor, all the same, and even art might be passive, or immersed in boredom. There's an inherent anxiety in boredom; individuals will expend considerable effort to forestall or remedy it, yet in many conditions, it's accepted as suffering to be braved out. Common passive ways to break away from boredom are to sleep or to think originative thoughts. Common active solutions consist in a deliberate activity of some sort, frequently something fresh, as familiarity and repeating lead to the boring. Boredom likewise plays a role in existentialist thought. In circumstances where one is confined, spatially or differently, boredom might be met with assorted religious actions, not because religion would wish to associate itself with boredom, but rather, partly as boredom might be taken as the essential human condition, to which God, wisdom, or morality are the elemental answers. Boredom is in fact taken in this sense by nearly all existentialist philosophers.

Without stimulants or focus, the person is confronted with nothingness, the meaninglessness of existence, and experiences existential tension. While it has not been widely studied, research on boredom advises that boredom is a major factor affecting diverse areas of an individual’s life.