Although routines are easy, breaking them now and then will only help you jump off the hedonic treadmill – no matter how hard it is to break out of it. Stop hedonic adaptation in its tracks by mixing up your routine and injecting some variety into your life to prevent you from negatively adapting to the things that make you happy. Avoid hedonic adaptation by breaking your routine After all, hedonic adaptation relies on you putting all your focus on the next goal. When you stop focusing on the end goal, it’ll become easier to break the cycle of hedonic adaptation. Focus on the process instead of the end goal.Įver heard the phrase ‘it’s about the journey, not the destination?’ Take this attitude next time you’re waiting to achieve that thing that’ll surely make you happy, and instead focus on the present moment and enjoy the process. Try out a few of the suggestions below, and let us know how you get on. There are, luckily, plenty of ways you can easily work to break the cycle of hedonic adaptation. The outrun approach isn’t sustainable, as it actually makes the hedonic treadmill harder to jump off! It’s not sustainable for the planet (we all know the effects of overconsumption) or for yourself. Others try to outrun it, always chasing the next new thing and big experience of pleasure.
You’re not alone! Some people can learn to live with the ride of the hedonic treadmill and recognise that not everything new can make them happy. But over time, you fall back into boredom and arrive at step one again.ĭon’t worry if the above has made you think “oh dear, I’m experiencing severe hedonic adaptation.” Almost all of us experience it at some point, if not regularly throughout our lives.You finally get the thing and you feel happy.You believe you need that thing to be happier.You get excited at the idea/opportunity of something e.g.You feel bored so you crave stimulation.It makes us focus on what we don’t have, rather than what we have. The term ‘hedonic treadmill’ came about in the 1990s as a metaphor to describe how people are constantly trying to raise their happiness levels, yet never really achieving the level they expect to. The psychologists Brickman and Campbell first noted this concept back in 1971 in their essay titled Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society. It explains why we feel disappointed with our choices in the long run, even if those choices were fundamentally good. It’s when we adapt to the things that give us pleasure it’s our tendency to return to a set level of happiness no matter the ups and downs we experience.
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