Why do so many of us feel dissatisfied? Introducing the concept of hedonic adaptation.

 

Once I move into a better house and get that promotion at work, I will be happy.

Sound familiar? If it does you are not alone. Despite the privilege of life in the UK and in many other countries across the world a huge proportion of us report feeling like our life is missing something.  The positive psychologist David Myers suggests in this book, The American Paradox, that “our becoming much better off over the last four decades has not been accompanied by one iota of increased subjective wellbeing”.  This is a puzzle.  In the developed world our lives are much more comfortable, we are better off financially, we have access to better health care, we can travel to anywhere in the world and we have the technology to make our lives much easier.  And yet we often feel a high level of dissatisfaction.

Why does this happen?

So much of our life is focused on trying to reach our goals - getting good exam results, getting in to a good university, gaining a qualification, buying a house – and so the list continues. But actually, once we get “there”, wherever “there” is, we are not necessarily as happy as we thought we would be. 

Lauri Santos, Professor of Psychology at Yale, suggests the problem has got to do with our minds! She proposes that alongside all the amazing wonderful aspects of our brains there are a number of “glitches” that make it really difficult for us to be content with what we have.

The “glitch” we are interested in for the purposes of this blog is something called hedonic adaptation.  Hedonic adaptation is essentially our mind’s predilection to come back to our baseline of happiness regardless of what positive or negative thing we have experienced.   To put this in to context, say we work really hard to save up for something special – a new bike, a great pair of boots, a new tent –.  We go to the shop to choose the new tent; we have done extensive research and feel really confident about our choice.  We purchase the new tent and experience this amazing feeling of euphoria; we have been waiting a long time for this particular tent. We go home, put the tent up in the garden and continue to bask in the lovely endorphins that the new tent has generated for us.  You might even be lucky enough to have this feeling for a few days or weeks but what happens is that over time we get used to the new tent and we stop noticing it.  It becomes just another piece of equipment that sits in the garage alongside all the other tent equipment.  And this happens with almost everything.  We work super hard to get that promotion at work, we put in the extra hours, we go the extra mile.  We eventually get our dream promotion and again like the new tent we experience this moment of euphoria but also like the tent once we are 6 months into the job most of us are no longer jumping out of bed with excitement about our new role.  Even the people in our lives are not safe from the adaptation process.  I am sure most of you can remember the heady excitement of meeting your current partner for the first time, it can feel almost magical…... but I wonder how many of you wake up each morning full of excitement when you see the person sleeping next to you.  Sadly, for most of us our brain has adapted to them and while we get to experience a deeper sense of connection, they no longer elicit the same exciting response regardless of how fabulous we think they are.   

So why does this happen, it happens because our minds adapt to almost everything and it is because of this adaptation that we can’t don’t hold on to those really good feelings.   I remember the first blog I published on my website; I was so excited I kept checking my website to see if it was still there.   Now I publish a new blog and although I feel a nice sense of achievement, I no longer feel an intense level of excitement.  This is because my brain has adapted and because of this adaptation my brain is now looking around for the next best thing.  

When we get dissatisfied or bored with the stuff we have, our instinct is often to get more stuff. A newer car, a better job, a better house….and this creates the hedonic treadmill.  We adapt to the newer car, the better job, the bigger house and we want an even bigger car, an even better house…. you get the picture.  We start living on the hedonic treadmill, trying to outrun our brains adaptation. 

So, what can we do about this brain “glitch”?

Unfortunately, we are not able to fix the glitch but we can manage it a little bit better. Lauri Santos has come up with some lovely practical ways of doing this.

1.       Invest in experiences that are difficult to adapt too

When we invest in a physical object like a car or a new pair of shoes they generally hang around for a long time.  And it this “hanging around” that allows our brain to move from excitement into adaption.  Experiences on the other hand are much more fleeting, spending a week in the sun, getting a 30 minutes massage, having a swim in the ocean – they are just not around for long enough for our brains to adapt to them.

 

2.       Practice gratitude for what you have

As most of you will know gratitude is associated with higher levels of wellbeing. Our brains have what psychologists call a negativity bias -this means that our brains are really good at noticing and remembering the tough stuff – the presentation that didn’t go so well, the person who was rude in the supermarket – but not so good at noticing and remembering the positive things – the lovely woman who held the door open for us or the delicious sandwich we had for lunch.  Practising gratitude helps us to redress this balance.   The research around this is powerful – by just jotting down three things you are grateful for each day for 21 days you not only start to report higher levels of happiness but you also start to change the wiring in your brain.  And this change in wiring will make it much more likely that you will continue to spot the good things in the future.   These don’t have to be big things; it can be the lovely cup of coffee you had this morning or the parking space you found when you were running late.  All of these things happen every day but generally we don’t pay them any attention, partially because our brain is not so good at noticing them but also because our brain has gotten used to them.   

 

3.       Imagine losing everything

This probably sounds strange but another way to hot wire our gratitude and dodge the adaptation glitch is to imagine you have lost what’s important to you.  This might be your partner, the job that you absolutely love or the lovely garden that came with your house.   By taking the time to imagine it all gone you experience a new appreciation for its presence. 

 

4.       Take a break

Alternatively, you can take a break from the things you love doing, eating chocolate, going out for dinner, buying new clothes. Remember when we do something all the time the brain adapts, by taking a break you interrupt this process and increase your level of appreciation.  One fun study even showed more enjoyment for your favourite TV show when it was interrupted by commercial breaks!

 

Finally

Part of the reason that we stop experiencing positive feeling is because we literally stop paying attention.  By stopping and noticing what it is that we value we are taking the first small step off the hedonic treadmill and into our already abundant life, which is just waiting to be rediscovered.