‘Hack the Boredom Code’ with Neera Maini Srivastav

In today’s world, where young adults face increasing stress, an imbalanced lifestyle, problems related to the new millennium, and mental health issues, ‘boredom’ is set to become a pandemic that we don’t seem to be doing enough about.

Neera Maini Srivastav a Children’s author, screenwriter, educator, and mindfulness coach, is back with her 6th book ‘Hack The Boredom Code’ which focuses on helping the GenY overcome boredom and achieving their potential in a humorous way.

The book is divided into three sections: Mind, Body, and Spirit, which offers tips /hacks/solutions in each category that seed the respite from boredom in a fun, engaging way. The book is a ready reckoner for young adults to get by their highly stressful daily lives in a more meaningful, healthier and stimulating manner.

A companion of sorts, the book aims at delivering well-being to troubled young things by throwing open a world of ‘creative’ solutions to combat the new age ogre- boredom, including a ‘boredom tracker’- for journaling purposes.

In an exclusive conversation with ‘Hans India’ Neera shares about her journey. Let’s have a look into it.

From writing stories for children to now writing self-help for the youth, what has triggered the shift?

All the stories that I have written so far for children are strongly rooted in human values- not in a didactic or preachy way but in a real-life sense. I guess that was the innate pool of inspiration always- writing for self-help though was a natural progression, it was in fact aided by just an observation of the youth- the goings on of their inner worlds- that left me both concerned and inspired to create something of value for them.

Boredom is indeed a very common problem quoted by the youth, what went behind picking this as a subject? What kind of research went into it?

I would say that boredom is age-agnostic. Not just the youth but all of us are dealing with it on a daily basis. Of course, the ‘bored state’ is perhaps enhanced among the youth. The idea came to my mind during the pandemic that had confined everyone to a new life order! Monotony became a daily visitor! And I heard almost everyone utter this line “ I am bored”. That’s when the idea struck to see how I could turn down the monstrosity of it all. My research was a deep dive into people of all age groups, across demographics and psychographics, all professions- from sports and medicine to bloggers and techies. Also read about it though not much available on it. The real insights came from people I spoke to.

Your book is divided into 3 sections for well-being of the youth let us know more about each section.

Well, the sections are mind, body, spirit. I believe any aspect of well-being is a holistic combination of all these 3. We can’t focus on only on the body or only the mind or only the spirit. They are bonded for life! that’s where the magic is. Being balanced in all the 3 holds the key to happiness.

Each section has hacks for boredom. For eg, the ‘body’ section has hacks that the physical self can do. The ‘Mind’ section covers the cognitive, intellectual space and the ‘spirit’ has consciousness covered.

The book has some easy tips to hack the boredom, what datapoints helped you arrive at these tips.

Some of the data points came from my own experience and knowledge gained from many personal growth/spiritual modalities that I have been an ardent student of over the years. Whatever I learnt from my mentors, gurus, friends and life lessons I poured into the book. The rest came from other people’s experiences. I collated all and power-packed the book with those gems.

Your previous book was 150 brilliant ideas to keep young minds fit and fine, now this caters to specific mental health issues such as boredom, what has made you focus on the subject of mental health in the youth and why?

The youth today are faced with so many challenges: some external and most internal. Unfortunately, not all are equipped with holistic tools to deal with those. I saw a lot of that happening reflected in the sheer numbers that have been rising as far as mental health issues among youth are concerned. And they remain issues because we are not giving them the tools to deal with them. In fact, we are only giving them more technology but not the discretion required to use it.

It is leading to low emotional and spiritual intelligence that in turn is affecting mental health. Depression and anxiety have become household names. I figured it was time to create a companion for the youth that would be their buddy, helping them through the journey. Boredom was the least talked about/written about and I chose it specifically for that reason. I felt it also had many answers and solutions that would lead to better mental health for the youth. In fact, for all.