The “hedonic treadmill” is an essential concept to understand if you want to maximize the happiness in your life. The basic idea behind the “hedonic treadmill” is that our happiness set-point often changes and adapts with ourselves and our environment.
Basically, we develop a tolerance toward the pleasure and pain in our lives. So the more you increase pleasure, the more you will need to increase it in the future to feel the same level of happiness and satisfaction.
Many of us understand this concept intuitively. The first piece of cake you eat always tastes the best, but then as you eat more it becomes less and less enjoyable. Our experience of pleasure is relative to our past experiences.
Anything in life that makes you feel good (or gives you a “high”) you can grow a tolerance toward, so you end up needing more and more of it to continue to feel the same uplift and mood boost.
The metaphor of a “treadmill” fits perfectly because you have to continue to do more work, but your overall happiness level remains the same.
In this way, happiness and pleasure can be paradoxical. Always wanting to seek more of it can actually make you experience less of it in the long-term, because your baseline is constantly getting higher and higher to reach.
The paradox is: by moderating our pleasurable experiences, we can actually maximize our pleasure overall.
Understanding the concept of a “hedonic treadmill” can be very helpful for living a more happy and joyful life. It can help you make smarter decisions when it comes to your daily habits around pleasure. And it can also protect you from become too “obsessed” or “addicted” to just one source of happiness.
How to Overcome the Hedonic Treadmill: A Healthy Relationship with the Good Life
Simply being more aware of the “hedonic treadmill” can influence you to make better decisions when it comes to your daily experiences of joy and pleasure.
Here are a few healthy suggestions to consider:
- Take short breaks to “reset” your happiness baseline. One of the best ways to overcome the “hedonic treadmill” is to actively take short breaks from certain pleasures. For example, take a whole week off from playing video games, or watching TV, or eating sweets and junk food. By doing this, you reset your happiness baseline – so the next time you re-visit the pleasure, it’s that much more enjoyable. In Silicon Valley, this trend is becoming known as “dopamine fasting,” since dopamine is the neurochemical that is associated with reward and pleasure.
- Be more mindful and savor the moment. When you do have a positive and pleasurable experience, make sure you take a step back to really absorb it and make the most of it. Practice savoring the moment by slowing time down and mindfully observing your experiences, even if it’s just watching a sunrise, eating your favorite meal, or a friendly conversation with someone.
- Cultivate multiple sources of happiness and pleasure. Make sure to diversify your sources for happiness and pleasure. Don’t just depend on one thing to make you happy, but instead give yourself a wide-range of choices. The more options you have, the easier it will be to balance them out and use them in moderation. This also prevents you from becoming too “dependent,” “obsessed,” or “addicted” to any single source. (Even better if you can find sources of happiness that aren’t tied to people or stuff).
- Recognize there’s more to life than “feeling good.” One of the most important lessons to keep in mind is that there is a lot more to life than just joy, pleasure, and “feeling good.” Sometimes we must engage in experiences with temporary pain, stress, and discomfort because they serve other values in our life, such as family, achievement, or morality. A meaningful life is often more satisfying than just a “pleasurable life” (though they don’t have to be mutually exclusive).
- Delay gratification. In today’s world we can often get whatever we want immediately, and this makes us crave “instant gratification” with everything in life. Train yourself to not always act impulsively toward your desires by practicing “delayed gratification.” This means purposely waiting before you give yourself a “reward” such as playing a new video game, or eating sweets, or buying ourselves some new product. Not only will this teach you self-control, but it can also help you harness the power of anticipation, which can help boost motivation and well-being, and give you something to look forward to in life.
- Practice “urge surfing.” The next time you feel a strong craving or desire, try urge surfing. “Urge surfing” is when you just observe the physical and mental sensations of your “craving” without responding to it. This can be a great way to learn more about your cravings and learn how to override them. Often when you observe any single desire, you find it’s temporary and will gradually fade or dissipate over-time.
- Try intermittent fasting. “Intermittent fasting” is when you fast for 16 hours every day (only consuming water or tea) and leave an 8 hour window for all of your eating. I’ve personally found short-term fasting to be a great way to build self-discipline and greater control over my cravings. I generally only eat between 2-6PM every day – but that “morning fast” between 7AM-2PM (besides coffee and water) always gives me a boost of energy and focus. (And I’ve lost some excess weight over the past few months).
- Everything you like in moderation. The core idea behind the “hedonic treadmill” really goes back to the age-old wisdom of “everything in moderation.” There may be exceptions if you have problems with addiction, but for the most part we should allow ourselves to engage in pleasurable experiences in a healthy and balanced way. The key is to not become too dependent on any one thing to provide us with happiness and contentment.
From now on, keep the “hedonic treadmill” in mind when you engage in daily pleasures. It may influence you to make small changes to your routine to help maximize happiness in the long-term.
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