Hedonic Adaptation
(and how to shift it)
Your life circumstances don’t determine your level of happiness, even though we’ve been deeply wired to think so (by consumerism, capitalism, the powers-that-be, etc).
Outside of catastrophic and long-lasting events (eg being bombed out of your home and having to flee your country with only the clothes on your back), a change to your happiness resulting from a change in circumstances is relatively fleeting.
Whether it’s a new Louis Vitton bag, a promotion, a job loss or a splinter, your happiness levels will generally settle back to what’s normal for you, taking anywhere from a week to a few months.
This is called Hedonic Adaptation.
We humans adapt to the new circumstance, and return to what happiness researcher Sonia Lyubomirsky calls our “individual happiness setpoint”.
Outside circumstances don’t produce a lasting increase or decrease in happiness, generally.
It can feel like being on a treadmill, where nothing you change in the outside world changes the internal happiness, despite your best efforts.
But there is an activity which can slowly shift your own happiness setpoint and provide more joy, less stress and some fabulous health benefits into the bargain.
It seems to be something humans do particularly well, according to the research.
And it’s easy AND fun to do.
Scientists call it ‘painting with hedonic gloss’ - imparting something with the shine of pleasure.
You do it every time you’re enjoying something and you pause to celebrate that enjoyment.
For example:
chair dancing when you take the first bite of a favourite food (I literally do this with sushi, and with bacon & eggs. Not together, obviously 😳)
gazing at a painting you love, and telling yourself specifically what you like about it (ohhhh, that shade of blue lights up my soul, the way that ocean sweeps around to meet the sky, the swell of her breast, the dance of light on the waters … )
groaning with pleasure or even pretending to swoon, when you smell something so divine it takes you beyond words (got a favourite perfume? Apply some, wait ten minutes for your skin to work its chemical magic, take a deep breath and AHHHHH…)
closing your eyes and luxuriating in the feel of a texture you adore (like the faux fur blanket I dug out of the closet just yesterday - like hugging a cloud)
I call this activity BASKING.
We’re not really encouraged to bask in pleasure.
We’re told it’s a waste of time, indulgent, unbecoming, unladylike.
We rush it, if we do it at all.
But if you want to lift your brain’s happiness setpoint, to get off the hedonic treadmill and have generally higher happiness levels - then painting your experiences with hedonic gloss is going to help a lot.
Plus - it’s a really, really good time!
Suggestion:
go back over the past 24 hours and think of one thing which brought you some sensory delight (hot shower? pillow? tasty food? first coffee of the day?)
imagine you’re experiencing it again now
how might you paint the experience with hedonic gloss? How might you bask? (say ‘mmmm’ out loud? snuggle in? do the pleasure dance? describe exactly what makes it so good?)
spend sixty seconds basking
notice the smile on your face
Now you know you can do it - pick at least one item a day to exercise hedonic gloss.
You can do it on the fly.
You can use it to start your day.
You can do it at night, picking one thing that happened during the day.
The more you do it, the more your brain will love it, and the more you’ll be drawn to do EVEN MORE of it - and before you know it, the world is full of pleasures and you are an expert at how to relish them.
And now - you are living defiance of all that old toxic programming which told you ‘people like you aren’t supposed to waste time on pleasure’.
This is pleasure as an act of revolution.
See to it, my glorious friend!
