![]() You cannot reach a lasting sense of contentment while stuck on the hedonic treadmill. The Hedonic Treadmill’s Effect on Happiness It’s like a regular treadmill, except that you’re spending all your money instead of doing cardio, and it’s hard to say which of the two is worse. No matter how much you chase external rewards, you ultimately remain stationary from a happiness perspective. While upgrading your life with each bonus or raise at work is easy, dialing things back later without creating negative feelings like disappointment and deprivation is pretty challenging. Then, after enough years of this pattern, you end up with a lifestyle that costs ten times as much as it used to but doesn’t make you ten times happier.Įven more nefariously, lifestyle creep works like a trap. We call this phenomenon lifestyle creep because it happens slowly, bit by bit, almost entirely unnoticed. Professional services (house cleaners, landscapers, contractors, assistants, etc.). ![]() The pursuit of happiness primarily through materialism and hedonism leads us to upgrade the things around us gradually: When it comes to spending money, the hedonic treadmill also goes by another name: lifestyle creep. However, once we climb onto the hedonic treadmill, the endless dopamine-fueled pursuit of hedonistic reward can severely harm our financial and mental health. Hedonic adaptation on its own is not especially harmful. This effect is the hedonic treadmill - a term psychologists use to describe the cycle of pursuing pleasure, adapting to it, and moving on to a new desire. However, due to hedonic adaptation, this too will eventually transition from “your new car” to “your car.” The cycle repeats, returning you to your happiness set point before you once again start to wonder what comes next. The new purchase brings a rush of enjoyment. So you buy a new car that’s faster, sleeker, and more luxurious. Something that used to provide happiness now starts to feel unpleasant. It needs more repairs, the heater doesn’t work, and it’s starting to rust. Over time, your first car degrades and falls out of date. That’s when they become more familiar, and we revert to a relatively stable level of happiness. Material comforts and new experiences can bring a rush of positive emotions, but people become accustomed to them over time. While pleasurable new experiences can facilitate happiness, they don’t significantly improve it on their own. This effect is called hedonic adaptation. You may still love these things many years later, but the pulse-racing joy you felt while they were new was temporary. Somewhere along the way, “your new car” becomes “your car.” As the novelty wanes, these things become part of the regular picture of your life. Major life events like these can make us feel ecstatic, but that ecstasy gradually fades, and we eventually return to a relatively stationary level of happiness. It could be when you bought your first car, moved into your first apartment or house, or a time you fell in love. Think of a time in your life when a transition brought you a rush of joy. However, thanks to the hedonic treadmill, these improvements sabotage our finances while doing little for happiness. With each upgrade, our bar for material comforts gets a little higher. Similarly, the hedonic treadmill is an effect that creates these feelings but without benefiting your physical health.Īs life continues, we have countless opportunities to buy fancier things, visit prettier places, and live more luxurious lives. What do you think of when you picture a treadmill? Most likely, it’s some combination of working hard, going nowhere, feeling miserable, and wanting to be somewhere else.
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