If you find yourself yawning during spiritual practices, you are not alone. (Phakorn Kasikij/Shutterstock)

Catholic sermons ranked most eye-shutting spiritual activity in eye-opening study

VIENNA — Have you ever found yourself stifling a yawn during meditation? Or perhaps your mind wandered during a religious sermon, or you felt restless while on a spiritual retreat? If so, you’re not alone. A new international study reveals that spiritual boredom affects many practitioners across various spiritual contexts, from yoga to pilgrimage.

While researchers have spent decades studying boredom in classrooms, offices and during leisure time, boredom in spiritual contexts has been largely overlooked. This is surprising, given the rich historical documentation of spiritual boredom. Medieval Christians called it “acedia” or the “demon of noontide,” which St. Thomas Aquinas described as the “sorrow of the world” and the “enemy of spiritual joy.” Even Viktor Frankl, the renowned Austrian neurologist and Holocaust survivor, noted that “the existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.”

The study, published in Communications Psychology, sheds light on this overlooked emotion. Their investigation across five different spiritual practices reveals that spiritual boredom follows predictable patterns that can explain why some people lose motivation for spiritual practice.

“Our research shows that boredom in spiritual contexts can pose a serious obstacle, which reduces the transformative power of these practices,” says lead study author Thomas Goetz from the University of Vienna, in a statement.

What Causes Spiritual Boredom?

The study examined five popular spiritual contexts: yoga, meditation, silence retreats, Catholic sermons, and pilgrimage. For each context, the researchers conducted two separate studies, one assessing trait boredom (habitual experiences across time) and another measuring state boredom (momentary experiences during actual practice). This comprehensive approach included 1,267 adults across 10 different studies.

According to the researchers, spiritual boredom stems from two main factors: inappropriate levels of challenge and lack of perceived value. When a spiritual practice is either too challenging or not challenging enough, boredom tends to set in. If you’re trying to hold a complex yoga pose that’s beyond your capability, you might feel frustrated and eventually bored because you can’t engage properly. If you’re an experienced meditator forced to participate in an overly basic guided session, you might feel unchallenged and bored.

Another key to staying engaged is perceived value. When practitioners don’t see value in what they’re doing, boredom increases significantly. These factors connect to what researchers call the control-value theory, which explains how emotions like boredom arise from our perceptions of control over activities and how much we value those activities.

A Demotivating Factor In Faith

The researchers found a mean level of spiritual boredom of 1.91 on a scale of 1 to 5. While not extremely high, this confirms that spiritual boredom is indeed a real phenomenon.

Levels varied considerably across practices. Catholic sermons triggered the highest levels of boredom (3.56 out of 5 for trait assessments), while pilgrimage showed the lowest (1.35 out of 5 for state assessments).

There were also notable differences between trait and state boredom measurements. Trait boredom (how bored people typically feel during spiritual practices) was generally higher than state boredom (how bored they felt during a specific session). This difference might occur because we tend to remember particularly intense past experiences of boredom more vividly than average experiences.

Across all contexts, boredom was negatively associated with the motivation to engage in spiritual practice. Simply put, the more bored practitioners felt, the less motivated they were to continue their spiritual practice. If boredom leads to the abandonment of a practice, addressing spiritual boredom is important for supporting long-term spiritual growth.

Making Spiritual Practices More Engaging

For religious and spiritual leaders, these findings offer a crucial insight: even the most sacred practices can become routine and uninspiring if not thoughtfully presented. Rather than assuming universal engagement, acknowledging varied experiences – including potential boredom – might create more inclusive spiritual communities.

“It is important to individually adapt spiritual practices and to repeatedly emphasize their relevance and meaning in order to promote their transformative value for our society,” says Goetz.

Spiritual practices could benefit from greater personalization to match individual skill levels and needs. The research team recommends that spiritual teachers maintain active dialogue with practitioners about feeling over-challenged or under-challenged and emphasize the relevance of spiritual practice for a fulfilling life. These approaches could help reduce spiritual boredom and maximize the positive effects of spiritual practice.

As Western societies increasingly turn to spiritual practices for mental health benefits and meaning-making outside traditional religious contexts, reaching those who may be experiencing spiritual boredom is something to consider.

This is especially relevant in our current global climate. Challenges like climate change and social tensions continue to shape society, causing many to seek solace in building their spirituality. However, the study suggests that feelings of boredom may hinder this search for meaning, potentially limiting the benefits of such practices.

The next time you find your mind wandering during meditation or feel restless during a spiritual retreat, remember: your boredom isn’t a spiritual failure—it’s a normal psychological response that might be telling you something about the match between your needs and your practice. Perhaps those who identified boredom as the “demon of noontide” long ago weren’t speaking metaphorically after all, they were just responding to the same psychological phenomenon that continues to challenge spiritual seekers today.