This 'hack' is known to drug addicts for centuries. Cyclic withdrawal from the drug to increase potency. Stoicism is the same principal used to recalibrate hedonic treadmill so you don't have to keep running faster and faster.
OP is referring, however, to the "life hack" promoted by the article's author which suggests keeping our baseline low so that we are constantly surprised to the upside.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/dhamma...
Don't give way to heedlessness
or to intimacy
with sensual delight —
for a heedful person,
absorbed in [concentration],
attains an abundance of ease.
When the wise person drives out
heedlessness
with heedfulness,
having climbed the high tower
of discernment,
sorrow-free,
he observes the sorrowing crowd —
as the enlightened man,
having scaled
a summit,
the fools on the ground below.