1/31/2024 0 Comments Hedonic impactSavoring helps us slow down and more fully appreciate the good things in life. So what does changing our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors look like? There are many well-being strategies we can implement in our lives that help us change our perspective or behavior to thwart hedonic adaptation. Instead, we will see the largest and most sustainable boost to our happiness as we change our own attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors. One word of warning: remember, a trap people often fall into is overestimating the joy our circumstances bring. For example, if you purchase a new camera, schedule time to use it, explore its features, or share your photography with friends. As Sheldon and Lyubomirsky stated, “Variety is the Spice of Happiness” 4. We can maximize the happiness we get from these things by continually finding new ways to enjoy them. Even winning the lottery didn’t provide a sustained boost to their happiness! When we expect changes to our circumstances to bring us lasting happiness, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment when those things ultimately fail to deliver.įirst, let's talk about that portion of happiness that comes from our circumstances. Although I’m sure they were ecstatic at first, their happiness levels didn’t differ from the accident victims over time. If a person’s circumstances produced lasting happiness, we would expect the lottery winners to be the happiest group. This means that many of the things that we often assume to have the largest impact on our happiness (like our job, our house, the place we live, or even illness), actually don't have as large an effect on our lives as we might think!Ī classic experiment which compared the happiness levels of lottery winners and paralyzed accident victims gives us a great example of this principle. Second, we learn that our circumstances only account for a small portion of our happiness! Think about that for a moment. There is much more that goes into our happiness! Rather, our genes make us more susceptible to happy or sad feelings. Although this might seem scary, especially if you fall into the latter category, know that our genes don’t determine how happy we will be. There are some people who are just naturally happy people, and others who have to work harder to notice the happy moments in their lives. How does this relate to hedonic adaptation? First, we each have our individual genetic happiness baseline. While those components are important, their main point was this: people can improve their own happiness through their own actions As they combed through decades of happiness and well-being research, they found that a person's happiness level is influenced by three main factors: genetics, circumstance, and intentional activities. In 2005 Sonja Lyubomirsky and her colleagues asked what affects a person's happiness levelĢ. If this seems disappointing, please keep reading! The truth is, there is a lot that influences our happiness, and there are things we can do to thwart hedonic adaptation, jump off the treadmill, and prolong the happy moments in our lives. People stuck on the treadmill often consume more and more in an attempt to feel good, but they often feel disappointed when their expectations fall short. If you’ve ever caught yourself saying, “I’ll be happy when…”, you’ve probably found yourself stuck on the treadmill. This pattern of "acquisition and adaptation" is called the hedonic treadmill 1. If we are not careful, our unrealistic expectations combined with quickly diminishing flow of positive emotion can drive us to continually chase new things to make us happy. We might enjoy the remodeled kitchen for a time, but what used to be new will eventually become ordinary and the happiness we gained from it will fade with time. Second, the happy moments and experiences in our lives don’t last forever. After we are done remodeling a kitchen, we might find that it didn’t make us as happy as we had hoped. First, we often expect new things or experiences to make us happier than they actually can. Hedonic adaptation can impact our happiness through two pathways. In other words, although something may make us happy (or sad) initially, we often quickly get used to those feelings and revert to our previous level of happiness. Thus, hedonic adaptation refers to our natural tendency to adjust to feelings that we experience. The term "hedonic" relates to our feelings or sensations. Did that new thing change your life? Chances are it was pretty amazing at first, but it’s also likely that the joy you first experienced didn’t last as long as you hoped it would. Have you ever purchased something new that you really wanted, something that you were sure would make your life noticeably better? It might have been a car, a phone, clothes, or any number of things, but most of us have been in this situation before.
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