Being bored is usually filed under mildly annoying. A randomized controlled trial out of Sweden suggests it does something measurable to the body: it makes pain arrive sooner.
Researchers put 114 pain-free adults through a boring video, a funny one, or a neutral control, then pressed on four muscles with a device that records the exact pressure at which sensation turns into pain. Boredom lowered that threshold at every site tested. Humor pushed it back up at two of them.
