The Psychology behind Happiness explained (The Hedonic Treadmill)
Happiness is what all Humans strive for. When asked “What do you want to achieve in life? Most people will tell you, they “just want to be happy”.
When we’re feeling down all we wish for is being happy again, and when we are currently happy, we want to stay happy for as long as possible.
We need to understand that happiness is constantly changing, it’s not a state of being that we can force to be permanent.
One basic psychological principle that we’ll be talking about today, is relative happiness – aka the hedonic treadmill. Sounds complicated, but it really isn’t!
First, let me ask you a question.
How do you feel right now?
In this very moment, reading this post?
How you feel right now, is probably your underlying emotional state of being.
It’s the equilibrium of your feelings. Most likely, you are not extremely happy or extremely depressed right now, just kind of in the middle, feeling “alright” – maybe a little tired, or a little stressed, or a little happy.
So this is how you feel naturally, when nothing extremely positive or negative is going on.
This answer says a lot about you, and your placement on the so-called hedonic treadmill.
This theory sees life as a treadmill – always moving, always going forward in a steady pace.
Just like you are progressing in your daily life. But this treadmill can either speed up or slow down.
We can either be depressed, going slow, worrying and being sad, or we can go fast, be excited, motivated and enjoy our lives! But this constant flow, this natural state of being when nothing influences us, and whether that is closer to sadness or closer to happiness – that is the key factor in the Psychology of Happiness.
This is also called a “set point”.
So now to live a happier life, the question is: how can we raise our set point? So that we are naturally happier in every moment, without influences from the outside, without even realizing maybe?
The first answers we might think of (getting happier through money, good looks, having kids, owning a house…) are just illusions in most cases. These things are portrayed as happiness, but still thousands of people are dealing with depression or an inner feeling of being incomplete, although they have all these things.
But there is another side to the treadmill analogy, and it’s about a remarkable skill of every human being : adaptability. This can be a blessing or a curse.
Imagine this scenario: You’re working a 9-to-5 Job, not satisfied with your salary. You work hard so you can get promoted and earn more, so that you can finally have a better life and buy a new car. Once you get promoted and buy that care, you are in a state of complete happiness for a few weeks or months.
But then, you get used to your “new life”, now you want something else – a bigger house. So again, you start working like crazy to get promoted, because then you would have more money and could finally be happy…
It goes on and on like a vicious cycle. Or like a treadmill, where you keep running and running, but never actually achieve your goal.
This is the way humans are programmed, and to truly be happy, you need to escape this system. Understanding the Hedonic Treadmill is realizing that chasing material things will never make you happy, and that life has ups and downs, but eventually you will always come back to that neutral level.
You can have a great job and an amazing relationship, or you can be depressed , but eventually everything is just a phase. Life is in a constant flow, and if one phase passes you will always return to that set point.
Most people never stop and question why they feel like they do in that very moment, in a natural state.
And because of that, we don’t notice our natural set point, and don’t ask ourselves how we can improve it. But that’s exactly the point.
So now the big question – how can we change this set point?
Well obviously, there is no easy answer to such a complex question. There are thousands of different approaches to be found on the internet, and I will not even try to go into that, because this post would then end up like a book.
But what you can do, is ask yourself at every moment: How do I feel right now, why is that so, and how could I improve it? Be aware, conscious, mindful.
Analyze yourself, and find out which , maybe you can feel a little bit better in every moment?
You should also question every aspect of your life, maybe there is something that influences your natural set point of happiness? A person, a job, an activity, a situation, a religion, that makes you always feel a little worse if you’re in your natural state of happiness?
With understanding the Psychology of happiness and increasing your set point, you are already 1 step closer to living a happier life.
Disclaimer: I’m not a Psychologist, nor scientist in any way. I simply want to explain the principle of the hedonic treadmill as best as I can, to help people and share my information. I can still learn a lot, so feel free to post more information below!
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