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The Hedonic Treadmill

happierhuman.com

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Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#91

Post by metaphorm »

and-can wrote: post #68
SonicSoul wrote: post #66

The hundreds of hours of dieting, going to the gym, and putting on make-up (or flexing, for men) increase happiness by a colossal 7%. nope nope nope exercising does much more than make you look jacked at the club. It makes your brain release endorphins for immediate mood improvement, and also improves thinking, sleep, and overall well being. The happiest I've felt in my life is when exercising regularly. Actually exe…

And even then, is 7% supposed to be a little or a lot? They say "hundreds of hours of dieting & exercising" but really that only affects an hour a day, maybe? I'd say that if I could spend 1 hour a day and get a 7% gain in happiness, it probably is worth it. And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and ge…

I find that actual metric here to be the most dubious part of the whole argument. I can easily understand making qualitative claims about happiness and maybe even some of the arguments presented by the author are good ones, on a qualitative basis.

But trying to quantify this is just so bogus. What do they think they're even measuring? They're just making statistical claims about questionaire results as far as I can tell. The author doesn't qualify that nearly enough. He is treating this like there's some kind of discrete quanta of happiness. "My current happy level is 7.453 kiloJoys" or something like that. Its just weird.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#92

Post by SonicSoul »

and-can wrote: post #68
SonicSoul wrote: post #66

The hundreds of hours of dieting, going to the gym, and putting on make-up (or flexing, for men) increase happiness by a colossal 7%. nope nope nope exercising does much more than make you look jacked at the club. It makes your brain release endorphins for immediate mood improvement, and also improves thinking, sleep, and overall well being. The happiest I've felt in my life is when exercising regularly. Actually exe…

And even then, is 7% supposed to be a little or a lot? They say "hundreds of hours of dieting & exercising" but really that only affects an hour a day, maybe? I'd say that if I could spend 1 hour a day and get a 7% gain in happiness, it probably is worth it. And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and ge…

well the article seems to imply that 7% is low: "by the colossal 7%"

and there is this:

But that same survey found that those with a low level of education were 47% more likely to be the happiest than those with a high level of education.13

so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#93

Post by metaphorm »

npsimons wrote: post #58

The claim that losing weight won't make someone happier always surprises me. To be sure, there are those who have deep seated issues that won't be solved by losing weight, or for those who lose a little it won't make a big difference, but I can state with confidence the fact that I am happier and my quality of life is better for having lost weight. Just getting better sleep (and not needing a CPAP to do it) has made…

I think that point needed to be deconstructed (by the author of the article) in a lot more detail. It strikes me as both obviously true in many ways but also obviously false in many other ways.

It is obviously true that losing weight won't make you feel any better about being stuck in a shitty marriage, or a job you hate, or being estranged from your parents, or any number of other things that can cause deep-seated unhappiness.

It is also obviously true that losing weight will make you feel better physically, and probably result in you being treated better by most of the people you interact with face-to-face on a daily basis. Being treated better by people definitely makes me feel happier.

On that note, I should really go to the gym more often.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#94

Post by widdershins »

virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #71
nickff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are romanticizing the hunter-gatherer past. Constantly being on the verge of starvation, eating under-ripe fruit, and scavenging rotten meat off week-old corpses was not a good or 'healthy' life.

I'm not personally familiar with the anthropological evidence, but I strongly, strongly doubt that 'constant verge of starvation' accurately characterizes even a small percentage of the past reality.

Being on a constant verge of starvation has been very much the norm through most of history, which is attested by this list of major famines:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

Bear in mind these are just the most famous famines, there were constant localised famines going on all the time.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#95

Post by allisthemoist »

"The top 1% own 48% of global wealth, but even they aren’t happy. A survey by Boston College of people with an average net worth of $78m found that they too were assailed by anxiety, dissatisfaction and loneliness. Many of them reported feeling financially insecure: to reach safe ground, they believed, they would need, on average, about 25% more money. (And if they got it? They’d doubtless need another 25%). One respondent said he wouldn’t get there until he had $1bn in the bank." [0]

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-...

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#96

Post by shostack »

blakesterz wrote: post #7

>>But sunshine after sunshine is correlated with nothing. >> Because if every day was warm and sunny, you would get use to it. That seems really really wrong. I see they cite studies but it just finally got warm and sunny here after a long cold winter and it feels, well, happy :-) Maybe, just maybe, if it was sunny all the time I'd get used to it. But some days wouldn't be sunny, or I'd travel someplace with no sun,…

Moved to the Peninsula from Chicago a couple years ago after becoming increasingly fed up with and depressed by winter (despite trying to "medicate" with a full-spectrum lamp).

Everyone I knew commented on how much happier I seemed. Sure some of that may have been job-related, but it is amazing how much I notice it every day, even a couple years later now.

The most noticeable thing for me in my day-to-day is that I no longer feel guilty during nice days when I just want to chill inside and play a computer game or something. In Chicago, since there were only a handful of truly gorgeous days per year, I'd have immense guilt. The flip side is that I need to motivate myself more to go outdoors, but because I can garden pretty much year round, I have an enjoyable hobby that keeps me outside.

Sure, some days I get a bit tired of the sun (particularly when we have heat waves), but the lack of humidity means I can usually hide in the shade and be fine, which can't be said of Chicago in it's 100% humidity summers.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get to a point where I take it for granted because it energizes me. However I do appreciate and look forward to a good rainy day which we rarely get. I even sat outside on my deck in the rain at one point because it felt so nice.

Honestly--I don't miss winter. If I want snow I'll drive to Tahoe. We get a gorgeous extended fall, and those three are enough seasons for me.

I'm fortunate to commute on 280 (vs. 101) and driving home in the evening I get to watch the hills go from a peaceful lush green in the winter/spring to a glowing gold in the summer and fall as the sunset lights them up. It really is something to watch the landscape change like that, and I certainly don't miss the ugly stage of black slush and dangerous white out conditions I lived through in Chicago.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#97

Post by facetube »

stevoski wrote: post #46
brianlweiner wrote: post #26

Studies have cast doubt on whether Subjective Well-Being (SWB) levels actually return to normal after significant life events. [1] [2] So a core element of this post may not even be an actual phenomenon. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469954 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3289759/

> Studies have cast doubt on whether Subjective Well-Being (SWB) levels actually return to normal after significant life events. I had heard (in a TED talk I think) that humans typically need only three months or so to get back to "feeling normal" after a terrible life event. Then I had my one terrible life event (widowed two days after marriage). Boy was that TED talk wrong! The next few years were a desolate wastel…

Man, I'm so sorry.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#98

Post by ZenoArrow »

WalterSear wrote: post #65
ZenoArrow wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, quantifying happiness is nonsense, but that doesn't stop people trying. I think it's a reflection of a common mindset that sees science as universally applicable.

It is. We just don't have the right science yet.

It's really not. Science, or rather the scientific method, applies only to that which can be quantified, as otherwise you'll have no way to accurately verify the success of a scientific experiment. You can try to quantify happiness, but only superficially, it doesn't accurately describe what happiness is. For example, if I said I was 72% happy today, what does mean objectively (i.e. outside from my personal context)?

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#99

Post by aianus »

SonicSoul wrote: post #92
and-can wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even then, is 7% supposed to be a little or a lot? They say "hundreds of hours of dieting & exercising" but really that only affects an hour a day, maybe? I'd say that if I could spend 1 hour a day and get a 7% gain in happiness, it probably is worth it. And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and ge…

well the article seems to imply that 7% is low: "by the colossal 7%" and there is this: But that same survey found that those with a low level of education were 47% more likely to be the happiest than those with a high level of education.13 so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus

> so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus

"Ignorance is bliss" is a pretty old idiom; who's to say it's not rooted in some truth?

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#100

Post by nvader »

SonicSoul wrote: post #66

The hundreds of hours of dieting, going to the gym, and putting on make-up (or flexing, for men) increase happiness by a colossal 7%. nope nope nope exercising does much more than make you look jacked at the club. It makes your brain release endorphins for immediate mood improvement, and also improves thinking, sleep, and overall well being. The happiest I've felt in my life is when exercising regularly. Actually exe…

I was having an internal tug-of-war about whether to visit the gym when I read this comment. Although I knew this already, this just gave the activation energy to get out of my chair and out the door. Thanks!
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