Living among the COVID-19 pandemic, with its loss of life and livelihood, and our need to maintain physical distancing to protect ourselves and our communities, we face the dual burdens of stress and boredom. It’s a difficult combination because persistent stress leads to lack of focus and feeling scattered. This distractibility leads to aimlessness and inactivity, which further leads to boredom. In boredom, we have nothing to distract attention away from all the stressors in our lives. Thus, stress can lead to boredom and boredom leads back to stress.

“Why do you guys always want to know how much stress I have?” While the patient who asked this question the other day had fibromyalgia, she could have had chronic low back or neck pain, chronic daily headaches, complex regional pain syndrome, or any other chronic pain condition. She was expressing a sentiment that I often hear in one form or another.