Hacking the Hedonic Treadmill
experimentalhistory.substack.com
experimentalhistory.substack.com
She is a great podcast guest, too. Her approach - that the people with the strongest addictions can tell us a lot about how we seek pleasure - has a lot of depth to it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34237719-the-hacking-of-...
https://hubermanlab.com/dr-anna-lembke-understanding-and-tre...
What caused your disappointment?
I've tried a bunch of different exercise methods. Gone running, swimming, weightlifting etc and I've never experienced anything close to a high afterward. I'll be tired, sometimes I'll feel proud of breaking a personal record but there's never any physical positive sensation or euphoria to me that would resemble the "runners high" that people often refer to. I think I'd exercise much more consistently if there were any biological feedback mechanism to make me want to rather than doing it the way I do, like it's a chore.
The closest thing I can compare would get the transformation of anxiety into excitement from getting a piercing but even that's super short lasting, maybe five to fifteen minutes of shaky internal excitement followed by a quick regression to baseline.
They're real, but (probably, usually) not literal. Exercise just leaves me feeling good, all over. If you've had the feeling, you'll know what I mean.
Some people don't seem to get it at all. And some probably do experience a literal high; if the dial can be dialed all the way down, I'm sure it can go to 11 as well. It's unfortunate if you're in the first group, of course.
I don't get it very strongly myself, but I compensate by making the exercise itself enjoyable. Swimming is boring. Spend a few hours hiking across a mountain ridge -- that's anything but boring. Still tiring, but the views are worth it, and it's a great place for lunch.
I had to build the endurance to go over 6 miles without stopping to experience my first runner's high.
I had to last a whole half in a basketball league to experience being in the zone.
It took me a couple years to even get the feeling, but now that I've experienced it, I can't stop doing it. I think there's a personalized threshold for everyone, but for me, it was pushing myself quite far beyond my limits.
I've known many people who have experienced Runner's High. I am not one of them, despite having run probably close to 10k miles in my life. Marathons, Ragnar ultras, stuff like that.
Might be genetic, or I might be doing it wrong. FWIW, I've also never hit "The Wall".
Separately, I usually feel pretty good after a run too. Some workouts I feel absolutely wrecked after, but most workouts, once you have a good fitness base, you feel pretty good after.
I'm not sure which of those, if either, are a 'runners high', but most runners I know have moments more like those than like an actual high.
I think peoples descriptions of exercise highs are overblown in general. When I was training hard I'd feel pleasantly worn out afterwards and would certainly agree that I got the endorphins flowing.
I do experience a workout high from lifting pretty regulary, unless it's a low weight week.
The only times I've felt it were on the tail end of cross country meets (a 5k race pace) and it was quite nice. Kind of an electric Bliss in your whole body. Borderline arousing at the risk of oversharing lol.
On that run as I warmed up I felt a giant release. And I felt happy... no giddy. And it was good. A few miles later I felt peace and then ran some more til I felt tired.
It's different than just putting some stuff in your nose and feeling good or popping a pill and seeing bright colors.
That's the most intense I ever felt it, but it was a good experience because it also helped me understand what it was, and I notice it often now - not every time I work out, but often - its there under the tired, post work-out let-down as sort of a "glow".
But after a good challenging bike ride I have 30 minutes to 1 hour of feeling great.
One in a while, I've have a great day, the music would kick in, and I'd get a runner's high. It feels like a sense of euphoria combined with frisson - the same sort of frisson I'll get when listening to just the right song at the right time. The crown of of my head would have an intense tingling feeling not some times when I've smoked cannabis.
It never lasted for long - maybe 3-5 mins tops, and I'd expect that it would fade quickly if I had stopped running. I don't believe it was associated with any distorted thinking that drugs are typically associated with - it's simply a powerful boost in positive mood.
Happiness as “Evdemonia” in Aristotelian scripts (Eudemonia in wikipedia) which more accurately translates as having “good demons” with you, which can be interpreted as feeling content/lucky for what you have.
Happiness as “Joyfulness” which is smily face marketing and instant gratification and hedonistic stuff aka buying the new iphone each year and getting bored at it and buying afterwards the next one because under a microscope the photo of the dark side of the moon looks better, when somebody else takes it.
So if one needs to repeat escalate: hedonism usually exploited by marketing, if you need to pay probably a facade of happiness and unfulfilling. Hedonism is nice to have tho.
If one is feeling lucky for his life and future: happiness aka lucky for parameters of ones life that would be deemed important 300 years ago and should be important in 300 years, conative with a sense of purpose. usually exploited by social and political systems (e.g.to be happy you need good health, very expensive if politics fights life) happiness is a must have
This article conflates one definition of happiness to the other while only discussing affective optimisation of hedonism.
Radiohead has an entire album about how fake and ultimately unfulfilling this is, but the problem is that we live in a society, and nobody wants to be an outlier. I may like the sound quality of my old earphones, but I still feel a tingle of shame when everyone else is sporting AirPods. We are evolved to follow norms, those who don't were ostracised from the community with dire consequences. This kind of fake happiness is thus an advantage.
Since when would Aristotle have used the latin alphabet?
> The study: Leif Nelson, in collaboration with Tom Meyvis of New York University’s Stern School and Jeff Galak of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School, showed subjects three kinds of TV shows: Taxi episodes, nature documentaries, and Bollywood programs. Some watched the shows with commercials, some without. Subjects who watched TV with commercials reported greater enjoyment—and were willing to pay more for DVD collections of shows by the same director—than subjects who watched without interruptions.
Maybe the show is good enough that people want to watch it without interruptions but the show is not good enough that people who have watched it would pay to rewatch ?
So people who dislike commercials also dislike the kind of shows that are on TV and thus aren't willing to watch more or pay for more.
Did those willing to pay more for the DVDs want the ads on the DVD? Or pay more to get without ads?
I think it's a variant of the old "nothing feels good if nothing feels bad to compare it with" chestnut. You could probably replace the commercials with almost anything mildly inconvenient.
> As has been shown with other positive life experiences, people predict and recollect experiences in terms of their imperfect expectations and often independent of their actual experience. As such, after having watched a show with commercial interruptions, consumers may rely on their lay beliefs and later recall that experience as aversive, which in turn will lead them to expect more aversive reactions to commercial interruptions in the future.
-- Enhancing the Television Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruption
(Movie theaters would make more money this way, also.)
It's still nice being able to choose when to take those breaks, however.
Or worse, until the next episode which would air the following week...or year if it's a season cliffhanger. I have mixed feelings about binge-streaming, but shoehorned cliffhangers are bad IMO.
If something is less enjoyable than you think it should be, I think "Maybe it's the lack of disruptors" is a fair guess.
Especially with some very intense shows that could be emotionally fatiguing without breaks, and when the timing of commercials is well chosen. It's not just random interruption, they can be used to make segments between like mini acts or episodes.
In my opinion, good approach to avoiding the hedonic treadmill is to think in “processes” rather than “goals.” If you achieve some goal, you get back to the equilibrium and get used to it. But if you’re on a journey, there’s nothing to adapt to as every day is a journey and brings something new. So it's like smaller pendulum swings every day instead of big ones every few months.
Nonetheless, I like the ideas proposed in this article and think they also are quite effective.
If the cost of maintaining your code grows logarithmically - and many projects do worse than this - then you have to constantly be finding ways to go faster just to keep getting the same amount of new logic into the system. This is something sometimes lost on people fixated on story points. They don’t notice that story points three years ago were “worth” more than story points today. Or maybe they do but they can’t prove it or even really name it. That would explain some of the friction I sometimes see with management.
However, it is also a lot more robust than the desires generated by the treadmill. Another way to think about it is learning to practice being content where you are (however imperfect) and sinking your attention into things that engage you and leave you feeling energized.
The treadmill will always be in the back of your mind, but it isn’t fit to drive.
More to your question: what happens is your tolerance for meaninglessness decreases, which has good and bad side effects.
I think part of what keeps me locked on to the hedonistic treadmill is that a lot of other people (including my partner) don't like who I am when I'm trying to stay off it. I tend to get more intense about a lot of things most folks don't care about.
It's funny, out of my whole family & friend circle I'm probably doing the most damage to myself via self medication, but when I try to get serious about things that matter and take a break from intoxicants, I end up doing just as much damage or more by putting my relationships through pointless trials of fire.
But I know what you mean about meaning. When it's good, it's really good and worth every bit of seeking.
It's unfortunate there are so many pitfalls to dodge for so many of us.
Others in your life may say they support your emphasis on spiritual growth, but what if that entails being passed up for a promotion, and, ergo, a raise? Most families would appreciate an extra $1k a month. Not every situation is either-or, but you quickly get a sense for what pragmatism means to people.
Often, it means comfort.
I hope you find the courage to continue to pursue meaning. It is good, as you say. Me, I made a bit of a deal with myself to make it a very high priority in my life when it is lacking. When necessary, meaning goes into the non-negotiable bucket.
Why is "Hedonic Treadmill" forced into blogspam titles like these? Was there a TED Talk recently?
> Variators are little modulations that keep experiences fresh
So...variety? Mind blown.
No, but that's also not what the HT hypothesis says. The treadmill pushes you back, not forward.
I’m curious what are you saying we figured out in the 70s?
> what are you saying we figured out
the Treadmill essay was wrong
Consider your wants and needs.
Most of us get stuck in our wants. We want to get a promotion, we want a nice car, we want a perfect family vacation.
But do we need any of those? Not necessarily.
We get stuck on the treadmill by not knowing the difference of our wants and needs. When you realize you don’t need the things you want, you focus more on the things you need.
Introspection in my opinion helps you find your inner happiness in discerning your needs from wants. This is why many ancient philosophers believed you can be plenty happy with “enough”.
i.e. Autonomy, competence, relatedness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory
One of the better books on this topic is "Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization" by Scott Barry Kaufman
Here's a piece I wrote based on that book:
Think of your life as a sailboat.
The hull protects us from the waves and keeps us safe.
The sail allows us to explore and adapt to our environment.
However, to get anywhere, we must open our sail to the world. Without that, we're stuck in harbor.
As we set out in the world in the many different directions we each may take in life. We are all sailing into the unknown of the sea together.
So while a ship in harbor is safe, that's not what ships are built for.
Even though you're alone in your boat, it's nice to see other lights along the way.
Guess that's stepping off the treadmill. I'm interested in stoic philosophy as opposed to epicurian philosophy, so all this talk of the hedonic treadmill seems super weird to me.
:)
this is just my take, but there’s noticeable patterns within literature in subjects such as minimalism, buddhism and stoicism. All pointing towards eudaemonia over hedonism. Sam Harris in his Waking Up Book / App covers this hedonic treadmill well too
we don’t embrace the impermanence of things
we’re programmed in the western world to be constantly chasing desire, these hacks build gratitude, which is a trait in eudaemonia,
thanks for sharing
It's just awareness of yourself. If you know that if you have one glass of wine, that leads to a 3 day bender, then you can do something to stop the cycle. If you mindlessly consume to be happier, this is a tool to stop the cycle.
In any case, it's a <3min read and it does offer a few non-BS pieces of advice that may be useful to some.
Nor does it stop author from believing his own lies.
In fact, by doing that, OP made an anti-appeal-to-authority. You seem to be interested in logical fallacies.. could you help me out and tell me if that one has a specific name?
"Setpiece escape room experiences, like climbing into a coffin " I have been in a real coffin a few hours once for a halloween fright night. Pretty comfy things. Felt quite relaxed.
The things a professor of marketing needs to publish to thrive professionally these days seems to have become surreal.
You are Most People:
> Though people say they prefer to watch television without ads, they sometimes enjoy programs that have commercial interruptions more.
The surprising claim isn't that most people say they enjoy commercials, it's that TV programs with commercial interruptions tend to correlate with people reporting higher enjoyment of the TV program despite claiming that the would prefer less commercials.
... when watching an arbitrary TV show picked by the person doing the study.
If you want to start assuming that a TV show you've chosen to watch will be more enjoyable with commercials go ahead, but that wasn't the way the study was done.
"You still haven’t accounted for the popularity of, say,The Sopranos and all the subscription-channel programs. Don’t we pay to get those shows without commercials?
Contemporary shows like The Sopranos might be interrupting themselves. Remember, it’s not the commercial that increases the enjoyment, it’s the interruption. These shows often run six or more parallel plots and constantly shuffle between them. One plot interrupts another."
...so, that entire concept has, IMO, been disproven by the rise of streaming services.
First time I've ever heard it called that - and I've had several.
Would you enjoy a pizza you found on the floor, or would you be imagining that it probably fell on a sidewalk loogie and has coronavirus on it?
Games used to have LAN parties. People used to watch stuff together more. Many activities had annoying prep work that could be considered like grinding in a game, but in real life.
Context makes or breaks entertainment.
A favourite on HN seems to be coffee, and spending ever more on 'good' coffee. I mainly just drink instant coffee, filter coffee for the weekend. I still get my 'good' coffee and I appreciate it. Same goes for wine and chocolate.
It's also led me away from expensive experiences to unique/different experiences.
It's also helpful for informing new purchases. Do I need the latest car with all the bells and whistles or can I just stay a generation behind and be excited with a new car with electric windows or whatever.
I just recently bought some Ersatz coffee and thought to myself
"Well, what sounds more like a unique experience. Coffee, or a blend of roasted chicory, wheat, barley, figs and acorns?"
This stuff is pretty great, and regardless of how much it resembles coffee (which it does to a surprising extent), this was a really solid purchase.
Great article, but this is a ridiculously hard to parse sentence with the number of `ands` and `ors`.
It is. "Capitalism is for children" said Adam Phillips [1]
You cannot be a fully fledged adult, a self-determined being, under conditions of wage slavery.
Education is set up not to allow graceful separation into adulthood, as most cultures have historically done, but to transfer dependency to a new set of masters.
Late capitalism in particular, with its intrusive lack of boundaries, neurotic management, measurement, bureaucracy and surveillance, or any similar state-controlled apparatus such as in China, is, as that line in "The Matrix" goes - a prison for your mind.
Philosophers criticised the Church (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) as "patently infantile family values" to keep people in subjugation. We have largely overthrown that aspect of patriarchal religion only to replace it with a Corporate equivalent.
> I'm looking for solutions to hack this
How did occidental culture dethrone the Church?
It didn't happen in one day, when everyone decided to live a secular life. For centuries individuals stood up, called themselves "atheists" and refused to join in the rituals. They were punished and suffered pain and ostracism.
The problem is, for the aspiring Hedonist, entering into a world of pain to champion a principle that people should have pleasurable lives, won't fly for any but the most unselfish and far sighted.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Phillips_(psychologist)
Most cultures historically didn't have any education (as we understand it now), with some rare exceptions (wealthy people hiring tutors for their children). Children just started working very early and learned via observation and on-the-job training.
I'd say that's untrue.
What I am particularly thinking about is rites of passage in primitive cultures. Education may have been as simple as learning to hunt, light a fire, fight, play with children, and cook food - but there were teachings and tests the tribe provided.
> (as we understand it now)
My point would not be that that's trivially true (nothing is as we understand it now if history implies progress), but that education as we understand it today is precisely the functional slight of hand I describe. A study of Mann, Dewey and the Prussian system introduced in North America will bear that out.
Of course, for the fully self-actualised person of good social conscience, learning does not have to align with the formula of state school and higher education. People with the courage to follow different paths are rare, or they have unusual parents who push them down that route (home-schooling, Steiner/Waldorf etc).
OMG, for a moment there i thought you were reading my mind! I've struggled professionally the last few years on this very topic. The only partial solution that i can think of - so far only as an experiment - is to minimize my cost of living, start to slowly partially retire, and move towards being a contract coder - either for corporate gigs or as a sub-contractor for other dev contractors. I figure being a coder (and likely lower level coder, not being like an engineering manager or anything like that anymore), might also allow me the freedom to work remotely, meaning that i can travel a slight bit more. And working in this fashion might give me the freedom to move onto another project/contract if/when i get bored of a particular project and/or client. Its an experiment to be sure...but frankly, that's the only thing that i can think of that might help me. I hope this helps! Happy to discuss more if you have private feedback. (My email is in my profile.)
EDIT: I failed to add that one element that is somewhat holding me back from fully diving into this mode of working right now is (what i feel is) one of the biggest hurdles to entrepreneurial freedom in America: being able to reasonably afford good, solid healthcare. (This is not meant to be political, just adding it in as another cost of living....and for myself, its not a trivial cost.)
Then occupy yourself with something you love, but not alcohol, tv, drugs, sloth etc. as this will probably lead to depression / addiction.
For HN stereotype that could be coding the side project which is always more fun than coding at work, even though it is still bashing keys and occasionally swearing at the monitor.
What are some examples of creature comforts here? And what does it mean to “swap” them for free time?
I understood the rest of your reply.
It was soft core in the sense we were close to civilisation and no one was going to die.
The main takeaways is being prepared esp. how to source water (bring water, filters, spares, more spares, ways to start fire to boil water) and calling for help (no reason to not get a beacon). And how to treat snake bites (because they can kill) was drilled in.
There is a belief, that I have lived myself that this is the only way.
A different way is to say do a year on 9-5 and year off living off less money. Or work half the hours.
These alternatives aren’t push button they require a lot of negotiation and some work to set up for yourself.