How to escape hedonic-treadmill for lasting happiness?
When we fail to differentiate between pleasurable life and a good life, seeking dopamine-based pleasure becomes the sole objective of life. This is also when life puts us on a hedonic-treadmill. Years-after-years, our run-on-the-mill chase leaves us wanting for lasting happiness. Moot question is – what should we do to escape hedonic-trap and achieve lasting happiness?
My own story of ice-cream
It looks like that my thirst for ice-cream would never get quenched. Like any other kid would do, I liked ice-cream so much in my childhood. I wanted to eat more of it but unfortunately I would not get it enough due to family situation. Our family income wasn’t sufficient enough to afford the luxury of spending on ice-creams. I grew up with this deep-seated wish of eating plenty of ice-cream. I literally funded my own education through tutoring school children. We had a thatched house. During rains, we had to struggle to find a place to sleep. There was no electricity at home. I grew up studying in the dim light of a kerosene oil lamp. Ice-cream, indeed, was beyond the scope of our living.
Nevertheless, somehow I had developed a big fascination for reading books and learning new things. I also liked sharing my learnings with others. During my undergrad time, statistics used to be my favourite subject and I was particularly good at solving problems. My close friends used to pester and take help from me. Overtime, the number of friends seeking help in statistics started growing and that put me under stress. Looking at the demand for my time, one of my close friend suggested that we would pay 100 rupee each for it. This was extremely lucrative for me and helping too. I started using this money to buy books which I was not able to buy earlier. Life took a different turn. Almost all my friends from the same class became my ‘student’ in a way. Look what, my preparations time increased, indulgence with statistics flared up, and I had to keep on searching solutions for new and difficult problems so that I do not flinch while teaching my friends. I realized that perhaps the best way to learn is to teach.
What happened to ice-cream? I had money to buy ice-cream and I started going for it. Ice-cream gave me pleasure which I craved for. But, I realized soon that it didn’t stop at one ice-cream. I needed to buy another ice-cream and another ice-cream and yet another ice-cream. Rather, my thirst for ice-cream increased as I started getting more of it. But then, I also realized that something similar is happening with teaching statistics to my friends. My indulgence with statistics increased several fold. I started getting more money and yet looked for more. Nevertheless, I thought of not chasing ice-cream so much and focus more on buying books and funding my education. Why did I do that? I have little answer to this question.
Was there any difference between eating ice-cream and teaching statistics? Scientifically speaking, both were backed up by the chase for neurochemical called dopamine and hence there was no difference. It was based on seeking pleasure in terms of taste, money, achievement and appreciation. However, there was a subtle aspect in teaching statistics. It was about the glow I could see on the face of my friends, a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of being secured with exams and feeling of being helped when needed the most. This became my driving force. When I solved a problem for them, I used to feel a river rushing inside me. It is hard to describe this river but we all know it when it happened to us. Such a rush of river inside bring profundity to life, and create an everlasting fountain of happiness. It is something like ice-cream vs helping others. When we help, we feel loved and happy and this is backed-up by neurochemicals called oxytocin, serotonin and endorphin. These happy hormones are different from dopamine which creates pleasure-trap for us.
The hedonic-treadmill and need for a dopamine-detox
When we buy a new car, it gives immense pleasure. However, after a year or two the marginal pleasure derived from the car starts reducing due to – one, reduced utility with higher repeated use and two, inter-personal comparison starts the more you look at the big and latest model being purchased by your neighbor. The point is that if objects and products like new dress, handbag, car, success, appreciation, and raise make us really happy, then these would have a long-term effect on our wellbeing and our happiness would be constantly compounding and increasing. However, it doesn’t! Rather it has a tendency of returning back to base-level after sometime. The mid-life crisis occurs when we run on such a hedonic-treadmill (chasing happiness in money, products, achievements and likewise) and in the long run at 40 or 50 years of age, we find that happiness has eluded, it stands at the same place where we started.
Each time our possession enhances pleasure, each time it entails the possibility of eloping our happiness. Dopamine as a rewarding chemical, regulates our pleasure. We get dopamine from things we generally like doing and they form part of our habit as well. Say for example, junk food. We crave for it once we are habitual of it. Each time we feel like eating, some or the other fast food would come to our mind. This happens because we start getting lots of dopamine from eating junk food. So is the case of certain type of music, looking at mobile repeatedly with the expectation of getting message or new notification. People need to see mobile as the first thing after getting up in the morning. We really need ‘dopamine detox’ to get away from this mind frame. Our brain has ‘neuroplasticity’ and it has become too much sliced and fragmented with loads of quick reels on the small screen in our hands. Once wired to certain pattern, the excessive dopamine would not let us think otherwise. We need to re-wire our brain through a different experience and exposure. The lust of pleasure is too immersive and it requires re-orientation of mind.
Affective vs Evaluative Happiness
How you are today, is not the same question as how are you these days. The longer the period of evaluation, greater will be the focus on experience. Affective happiness connotes to ‘mood swing’ and mood swing is not happiness. Happiness is evaluative in nature, a subtle sense of feeling of satisfaction with life. It is the protoplasm of life’s overall wellbeing. Problem is that we search happiness in shorter and immediate factors and possession while what we aspire for is a sense of life-satisfaction over a period of life lived where experience counts.
We all are going to age someday and reach retirement and fag end of life. There is a million dollar question we all need ask to ourselves at that point of time. And the evaluative question is – Look back you entire life and ask ‘am I happy?” The answer to this question does not lie in your earning and possession, nor in your achievement or recognition. It is somewhere else. It lies in fulfilling the purpose of life, helping others, and nurturing soul.
Neurochemicals for happiness
Pleasure is dopamine while happiness is oxytocin, serotonin and endorphin. A long walk through green meadows, a night in forest, colourful flowers at workplace and at home, socializing, helping others and a laughter with close friends may provide those extra bits of oxytocin, serotonin and endorphin needed to detox our mind. Endorphin is a healer and a natural pain reliever. It soothes up our feelings and set is right. Spend some of those preciously earned money on vacation. Click pics with family and friends. Make videos of your memories. It has been observed that a paid family vacation granted to employees enhances happiness in measures more than a monetary incentives.
Crafting a happy mind: Amygdala Hijack vs Pre-frontal Cortex
Our mind works in very interesting ways. It tells more stories on sad aspects rather than happy aspects. There is cognitive bias in our thought process, which propels us to be concerned about wrong happenings, uncertainty, sad occurrences and attuned to unpleasant thing, anyone must have said about us. We remember bad things spoken about us more than good things said. The mind’s cognitive-bias for negative and sad occurrences are driven by amygdala. The amygdala in our brain creates a ‘fight or flight’ response. It is part of our reactive network, which tends to prompt sharp, quick and extreme reactions, including fear. Some of the circumstances when the amygdala would likely react quickly can be: Being excluded or alienated; Bereavement; Being treated unfairly; Being criticized; Change or ambiguity; Being wrong; Being treated disrespectfully and so on. This is our “System 1” which guides almost 95% of reactions. The rest 5% is about the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) or neo-cortex. The PFC is our responsive network as against the reactive network. This is our thinking, reasoning and logical brain. The responsive network gets activated in circumstances such as: Being acknowledged; Being treated fairly; Collaborating with a team; Giving charity; Competence; Having meaning and purpose and so on.
What happens when our pre-frontal cortex gives up completely and our actions are fully controlled by the amygdala? This is where we lose control of our actions, and the post-action scenario can ensue regret and urge to reverse the action. The amygdala is also known as the primitive brain as this kind of taking over of our brain helped primitive humans fight dangers or life-threatening situations. However, throughout human evolution and the growth of society, such do-and-die situations are far less in occurrence and for a better living we need to work more from PFC than the amygdala. We need better control of the amygdala by PFC. The disconnection of PFC and amygdala can create havoc and huge stress, which has rightly been called “amygdala hijack” by Daniel Goleman in his famous 1995 book “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ”. The amygdala hijack occurs when the amygdala takes over in response to our stress and completely disables the frontal lobes. This means that the amygdala has disabled our rational response and activated an auto-pilot fight-or-flight response.
Our brain also has a star-like shape called ‘astrocytes’ which provide energy to neurons and support neurotransmission. We need plenty of such “stars” for the relying of the brain signals, in the absence of which the brain’s cognitive ability hampers. In a study by Ashley P. Taylor published in 2021, it was pointed out that these star-shaped brain cells may also help us understand depression’s biological roots. Our brain gets more supportive stars when we are less reactive and more inclined to PFC activation. A better control of the amygdala tends to make us experience happiness.
Fulcrum of Life: Body-Mind-Heart-Soul
Indeed, if we do not do anything about controlling mind (controlling amygdala) and work towards getting a balanced mix of neurochemicals (dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphin), we will experience lesser happiness as we grow in age. If we lose the balance and cross all through mid-age, it might as well create loss of life-purpose and extreme dissatisfaction with life when we age. The fulcrum on which we need to work for a good life and a meaningful life for happiness encompasses actions for Body, Mind, Heart and Soul. Here is a list of 10 highly recommended actions which might be helpful for you:
4-Actions for Body
3-Actions for Mind
2-Actions for Heart
1-Action for Soul
In conclusion, I would like to suggest that the essence of good life lies in developing a larger purpose and leading a meaningful life. Once must adopt active practices of regular walk, meditation, reading, build relationships, and carry a lot of compassion and empathy for others. These are the mainstay of good life and a happy life. Go for ice-cream, but be careful of not losing sight of bigger picture of life. After all, you don’t have to be on hedonic-treadmill all through, you can escape it for sure!
