Hedonic treadmill how to#

Find meaning in the things that give you pleasure.Simplify your life by multitasking less.Accept your emotions, whatever they might be.Tal Ben-Shahar, an expert on positive psychology and leadership, offers these suggestions to amplify our happiness and escape the treadmill: This leads to some of the steps we can take to adjust our mindset toward happiness. A positive outlook and a good mood are indicators of adults in secure social bonds. In fact, according to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, satisfying relationships at age 50 is the number one predictor of good health at age 80. Studies on older adults have shown that no matter what painful experiences they deal with, strong relational bonds and good memories have a huge impact on feelings of fulfillment in old age. What this requires is a change in perspective, and a new mindset toward the good and bad in our lives. This means that a lot more of our happinessвЂ“and our response to the events in our livesвЂ“is within our control.ДЄdjusting our attitudes toward happiness, and therefore moving our baseline, is well within our grasp. On the other hand, 40% of our response is based on our actions, thoughts, and attitude. But research shows that a surprising 10% of our response to positive experiences is actually related to our circumstances. It can feel like our happiness is intertwined with our circumstances, and therefore impossible to change. The biggest question, however, is whether or not they have any control over their baseline.

Hedonic treadmill how to#

How To Take the LeapДiscussing this concept with your client may generate a lot of questions. And weвЂ™re back to the baseline again, climbing onto the treadmill to chase the next high. In reality, we look more like a hamster running madly on a wheel. We believe that the вЂњnext thingвЂќ will be the thing to truly level up our happiness and keep it there.

We can chase spikes in happiness through compulsive things like purchasing, overeating, or substance abuse. But this constant search for deeper fulfillment can have negative consequences as well. One of the key effects of living on a hedonic treadmill is that weвЂ™re constantly on the search for the next вЂњhigh,вЂќ or spike in our happiness. But it doesnвЂ™t say you canвЂ™t make changes to your baseline. It describes how people typically maintain their levels of happiness. The good news is that the treadmill is descriptive rather than prescriptive. This concept might seem a bit bleak: that our happiness is simply subject to a baseline thatвЂ™s out of our control.

The hedonic treadmill, a psychological concept developed by Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell, posits that human beings tend to maintain a вЂњbaseline happiness.вЂќ While we can experience positive events that might boost our happiness levels or negative events that might lower our happiness levels, we inevitably return to this baseline. We identify something that will bring us happiness, and once itвЂ™s in our grasp, we seek out the next best thing, hoping it, too, will bring us happiness.Д«ut we are notoriously bad at predicting what will bring us this elusive happiness. вЂњHappiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.вЂќ - Nathaniel HawthorneДefining, capturing, and keeping happiness has been a preoccupation of human thought for as long as weвЂ™ve been alive. Hedonic Treadmill: How Can I Raise My Happiness Quotient