The New New
Your Brain Is Wired to Suck the Joy Out of Good News
Here’s how to break the cycle
When a good thing comes along, humans have a frustrating tendency to overplay the effect it will have over the long term. This, we tell ourselves, this will be what finally makes us happier: getting married, buying a house, going on a dream vacation, landing a coveted promotion.
And for a little while, it probably will. But nothing lasts forever, happiness included. Eventually, everyone goes back to baseline. One study found that the initial excitement of marriage tends to wear off after two years; another suggests that the honeymoon period in a new job lasts a year, on average. Even smaller pleasures — a slice of cake, a new hobby, a day off work, a different hairstyle — may feel more fleeting than we’d like. And once the magic wears off, we’re left to pursue the next thing for the same result. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as “hedonic adaptation,” or, sometimes, the “hedonic treadmill.” It’s an apt image for what’s going on in our brains: always running toward sustained happiness, never quite reaching it, forever chasing the reward that remains fixed in the distance.
Researchers believe hedonic adaptation is a protective mechanism, preventing external stimuli from having too great an impact on our…
