Healthline: Our Minds May Be Programmed to Keep Wanting More, Leading to Unhappiness

“What’s sometimes called the “hedonic treadmill” is another phenomenon that can lock you in a cycle of unhappiness.

Essentially, it means that happiness brought on by achievement is usually fleeting.

“People quickly adapt to life improvements and it becomes their ‘new normal.’ This highlights how tricky happiness can be,” said Dowd.

“As expectations of ourselves about our own… achievement grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to reach a new level of achievement and therefore more difficult to have the positive feelings of such achievement,” said Kaplan.

“Similarly, the novelty of a new achievement is important. The first time a certain achievement is attained it is highly rewarding; however, there is a diminishing return for the same type of achievement in the future,” he added.

Experts believe that practicing mindfulness is one way to avoid getting caught up in achievement and overconsumption. There comes a point when “it’s time to change your aspirations and switch from wanting to enjoying,” said Dimitriu. “I think it is essential to have as much practice using the brake as using the gas pedal,” he added. “Part of human nature is to attempt to improve and this has driven us to be successful in various ways,” said Alam.

And while this new research sheds light on exactly how some of these mechanisms could be beneficial, be aware that the consequences have been understood for some time. “One of the things that you have to look at is that [marketers] study our reward systems much more than we think. The seduction of modern marketing techniques always leaves you feeling that you want more,” Alam said.

Some Insights From This Article

• With consumerism and no delay of gratification culture being perpetuated we might be falling into a culture where we’re often mostly dissatisfied and wanting more even when we have gotten what we needed just before.

• Called the hedonic treadmill we often will set our sights wanting a certain goal or object, but once we achieve it we become very attuned to look for the next best thing or set our sights on something else.

• The article mentions ways in which we counter this is practice being grateful for things we already have in our lives. Additionally learning how to delay gratification. This can include practicing not being on our phones for some period of time and learning to go through a process before treating ourselves to a reward.

What are some ways we can train our minds to be more happy and satisfied?

Full article is here!

#Happiness #Satisfaction #Culture