Do you feel empty a couple of weeks after you achieve a big goal or after you buy the latest
tech products? It didn't make you feel as happy as you had expected it to feel. Soon enough,
you're planning your next big goal and your next big purchases. Welcome to the Hedonic Wheel also
known as the Hedonic Adaptation. Today I'm going to explain it to you in five steps and how you can
break the vicious cycle of the Hedonic treadmill. Welcome back to 5 Mins 5 Ideas I'm your host
Samanvay. I remember when I bought the Macbook pro I'd always wanted. The first few days I felt
ecstatic and happy and I took the best care of the laptop as i could. Then a week later I wasn't
any happier than before I had purchased the mac. Although I didn't throw the mac around I didn't
exactly flinch if I saw a scratch on it. I went through the same cycle when it came to achieving
goals. It could be coming first in class, winning a cross-country race or getting a promotion and
despite achieving all of these things I felt like there was something missing. After reading into
minimalism and intentional living I realised that the source of my troubles was the Hedonic
treadmill. Psychologists Brickman and Campbell first proposed the idea of the Hedonic treadmill
a.k.a Hedonic adaptation in 1971. They found that no matter how good or bad an event initially might
make us feel we always returned to a happiness set point which was similar to how we felt
before the incident. Let's take a look at the research comparing happiness levels of lottery
winners versus that of recent paraplegics due to accidents. While initially each group
experienced extreme levels of happiness and sadness respectively. In the long term these
groups were not any happier than the other. Their happiness levels had normalised to before
the incident now we know exactly what the hedonic treadmill is what are the implications for us in
our daily lives achieving a goal or engaging in retail therapy will never make us happy
on its own so if you keep chasing the high that you feel after a subsequent big purchase then you
will be left feeling dissatisfied and unfulfilled and you won't be any different to a rat chasing
its own tail. The Hedonic treadmill is a trap that is a lot harder to escape in our modern
capitalistic society where materialistic success and consumerism are king, because it's deemed to
be good for business. On the flip side, if you're going through a breakup then rest assured that
your happiness levels will definitely revert back to how you felt before the event. So what
exactly is the happiness set point and is this something we can possibly change. The happiness
set point as we discussed is the baseline of our happiness. Some researchers have found that up to
50% of that happiness set point is determined by our genetics and then another 10% is determined
by the environment we live in so that is the family we're born into or the country and then
the remaining 40% is influenced by us. It's important to note that happiness set point is
different for each individual's and there can be multiple happiness set points as positive
emotions negative emotions and the general satisfaction with our lives are the numerous
factors that can contribute to this happiness set scores. Now let's have a look at how we
can change the happiness set point so researchers have compared happiness set points across nations
the common predictors of a person's well-being includes higher than average wealth and strong
support for human rights additionally factors such as gdp per person political stability and
life expectancy at birth contribute to a person's happiness set point and their well-being. Now we
know that external circumstances can affect our happiness set point but what can we do ourselves
to affect it therefore also escape the hedonic treadmill. Firstly let's talk about chasing goals.
Instead of focusing on the outcome of a goal, it's better to focus more on the process of it as
that turns it into an autotelic experience which you enjoy doing for its own sake and therefore
this also enables you to manifest flow which is the real thing that can improve your quality of
life. If you're interested in finding out more about what I mean by flow, make sure to check out
this video. When it comes to engaging in retail therapy before you do something like that always
make sure to ask yourself whether you need that particular item or whether you simply want it and
definitely spend some time thinking the purchase over as allow you to escape your impulsive urge to
buy an item and another thing that's helped me a lot is by decluttering make sure you look at
that item and ask yourself whether or not it makes you happy and if it doesn't get rid of it. This is
something that I've learned from Marie Kondo, an author of multiple books about minimalism which
is all about assessing your relationship with the things you own and also assessing truly what
makes you happy in real life rather than buying the latest Iphone or the latest computer. Now
i've only briefly covered the Hedonic treadmill if you're interested in finding out more i'm going to
leave a whole bunch of links below so you can go ahead and delve into it more if you're interested
as usual if you enjoyed the video don't forget to like and subscribe and I'll see you next time.