What Is Hedonic Adaptation And How Can We Avoid It?

Like many people, my life has had its’ share of ups and downs. I’ve had goals and experienced setbacks. Aspirations have been reached and happiness has been felt, but it’s always been fleeting. In fact, nearly any happiness I’ve ever felt after buying something I really want, getting a raise or having experience, life always seemed the same afterwards. I always expected to feel different; changed. Does this sound familiar? A few years ago I stumbled upon the concept of the Hedonic Treadmill, which explains this phenomena I’ve experienced in perfect detail. Which leads us to explore this question: “What is hedonic adaptation and how can we avoid it?”

Mandatory Disclaimer: We Are Not Psychologists Or Experts – The Following Is Based On Our Research, Experiences & Beliefs.

What Is Hedonic Adaptation?

The ‘Hedonic Treadmill’ is a tongue-in-cheek name for Hedonic Adaptation.

Let’s use an actual treadmill as an example.

Perhaps we get bit by the fitness bug – we’re feeling a bit out of shape, and aren’t exercising. We see a commercial for a treadmill on TV. We’re inspired by the toned, fit celebrity endorser, who promises you to ‘look and feel your best‘ when you get in shape.

We decide that we’re not in shape because we NEED something to get us going. We buy the treadmill. We fire it up and get our first run in. This thing is amazing, we think. We’ll easily get in shape now that we’ve got this new treadmill.

Then life happens. We get busy for a couple of days. We just want to relax after work. But the treadmill is calling us every time we walk by. We know what we need to do. The workout feels longer than it did before, and we finish will less pep in our step.

We find ourselves avoiding the treadmill, no longer inspired by it. A few weeks go by, and before we know it, it’s gathered dust. This is the Hedonic Treadmill concept in true treadmill form.

Hedonic Adaptation is the concept that our levels of happiness can rise or fall when stimulated, but will otherwise return to a ‘default’ state of happiness when the newness of the stimulation begins to fade. Happiness achieved through external means is temporary.

Examples of positively stimulating our happiness levels include:

• Making a major life purchase that we’ve aspired to i.e. a dream house, a car, an exotic vacation, etc.
• Shopping for new stuff.
• A big life event such as a wedding or graduation.
• A better title or salary.

You can probably imagine plenty of examples of negative stimulation to happiness levels already, so we’ll skip it.

In any event – the message is that all feelings we get from outside sources is only temporary, and we always return to a default state of happiness over time.

Is Your Level Of Happiness Set?

There’s a few ways to look at this.

We can achieve happiness through a new purchase, life change or substance – it’ll just be temporary. However people get in the habit of repeating the following cycle over and over, hence the treadmill reference.

These are the phases of the Hedonic Treadmill:

• Existing in a state of boredom, and crave stimulation.
• Get stimulated at the idea or opportunity of something exciting: job, money, drugs, relationship, etc.
• We believe we need this thing to be happier.
• After desiring the new thing, we finally get it. We feel a sense of happiness.
• Over time, we get bored again – the new thing no longer gives us the happiness and we crave more…
• Repeat.

Interested in more proof? Check out this article discussing how winning the lottery has ruined some people’s lives. Among the issues are bankruptcies, depression and overdoses. So many of us believe that by winning the lottery, it’d be IMPOSSIBLE to not be happy for the rest of our lives. Unfortunately, this is not true.

This article talks about how negative emotions, even after a tragedy, can be overcome through optimism, acceptance and determination. The emotions from negative things are also only temporary. We will once again return to our default state.

Despite these truths, most find themselves on this treadmill anyways. This is why transitioning to a life of minimalism is difficult for many. The majority of us are used to receiving happiness through reaching goals, experiences and new things in our life.

So in short, over a long enough timeline, our baseline level of happiness will always be set to a certain level, often below where we think it should be…unless we take some specific steps! We’ll explore this more in the next section.

How Can We Get Off The Hedonic Treadmill? 10 Ideas

Psychology Today theorizes that our baseline level of happiness, referred to as a ‘set-point‘, can in fact be raised through helping others. We believe there are several more ways to do this, as well.

Getting ourselves off the hedonic treadmill will involve us deprogramming our expectations, perspectives and what we think we know to be true, for much of this is programmed into us through society, media and environmental expectations of family, friends, community, etc. – many of whom are stuck in this hedonic cycle themselves!

Breaking this cycle and getting off of the hedonic treadmill requires the we make some fundamental changes to our general outlook, as well as follow a few practices. Doing these 10 things will allow us to raise our baseline level of happiness, and depend less on external forces to feel happier:

1. As said above, committing selfless acts of charity provide us with genuine satisfaction.
2. Recognize unnecessary wastes of money in our lives.
3. Go through our things and donate or sell everything we don’t use.
4. Meditate and practice mindfulness, so we can begin to recognize previous unhealthy behaviors and dependencies in ourselves.
5. Remove toxic relationships from our lives; people who are still running on the treadmill that might encourage our old ways.
6. Consider if we feel any lacking in our lives – are we trying to fill a void inside of ourselves with shiny, new things?
7. Abandon the idea that something outside of ourselves is ever going to be the answer.
8. Observe the lives of those who’ve been our biggest influencers. Consider if you see any of the same tendencies in them.
9. Be grateful during times of hardship by counting your blessings and showing appreciation.
10. Try to maximize the use of what we have, rather than looking for what else we want.

In Conclusion

We are programmed by society and human nature to seek out external ways to increase our happiness. While we can get a happiness boost from shiny new objects and experiences, it won’t last. The good news, is that it doesn’t matter.

By avoiding the temptations of the Hedonic Treadmill and practicing healthy ways to boost our natural happiness set-point, we will finally free ourselves from this rollercoaster of emotions and find true happiness instead!