The hedonic treadmill: Why happiness can feel so elusive

Psychedelic Therapy Frontiers

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Why does happiness feel so elusive for so many of us? Maybe you’ve had the experience where you long for a change, believing that once this change occurs then you’ll finally be happy. Then that change happens, but it didn’t deliver lasting happiness. You buy the new thing, take the vacation, achieve the goal, get the promotion and you feel happy for a while but eventually it feels like you’re back where you started.
In today’s episode of the Psychedelic Therapy Frontiers podcast, we explore the phenomenon knows as the “hedonic treadmill”--the tendency for people to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. We discuss examples of this in action, possible evolutionary explanations for this tendency, the role of dopamine, how it relates to habit formation and addiction, exceptions to this tendency, ways to get off the treadmill, and much more.
For those of you who are new to the show, welcome! Psychedelic Therapy Frontiers is brought to you by Numinus Network and is hosted by Dr. Steve Thayer and Dr. Reid Robison.

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