Adapting to happiness...

Lately I have been having random little psychic moments.  I will think of something, and then soon after I will either read or hear about the very same thing.  It's very odd.  It happened after my last blog post.  I wrote about seeing my husband for his forest and his trees, because we spend blocks of time apart amongst our time together.  Then, I picked up my book, The Upside of Irrationality, and the very next segment was on precisely that.  I found it so fascinating, I thought I would share.

So, according to the author, Dan Ariely, humans have the amazing ability of adaptation.  His simple example of this is when you walk out of a movie theater on a sunny afternoon, and your eyes automatically adjust to the light.  Likewise, we are able to adjust to emotional changes in our lives relatively quickly, such as the loss of a job or the death of someone close.  In fact, he says, research shows that we adapt to these traumatic events faster and more easily than we expect.  He writes that when we foresee an event, say a divorce, we automatically assume we won't be able to handle it, or that it will be hugely painful.  But in these predictions, we are not apt to take into consideration this super power of adaptation.  The same is true with happier events.  We assume that if we win the lottery we will be overjoyed.  This is true, but only for a limited amount of time.  After about the same time it takes to adapt to a negative event, the power of the positive event wears off, and we are back to our baseline of happiness.  This opened my eyes to what drives us to want more all the time.  Because nothing ever makes us as happy as we imagine it will, so we keep looking for it, that thing that will bring us eternal happiness.  Of course, it doesn't exist.

So, back to how this relates to my previous post.  Ariely put together a study to determine how quickly people adapt to stimuli.  He took two groups of people, and he exposed one to an ongoing negative stimulus.  The other he exposed to two short negative stimuli, but with a break in between.  Although those who had the break received the stimulus for a shorter period of time, they reported a higher negative reaction than the first group.  Why?  Because those who were exposed to the continuous negative stimuli adapted, and it didn't bother them any more.  To test the other side of the coin, Ariely chose another two groups.  He gave the first an uninterrupted period in a massage chair.  The other group received a short massage, followed by a break, and another short massage.  So, who reported a higher level of enjoyment?  The people who received a break.  This is because they didn't have the continuity that leads to adaptation, thereby increasing their enjoyment.

Therefore, the lesson from his work is that if you are engaged in some unappealing activity, like doing taxes, it is best not to take breaks, but to plow through.  This will allow you to adapt and to experience a lower rate of unhappiness.  On the flip side, if you are doing something enjoyable- being with your husband, for example- take breaks.  Although it's hard because you don't want the fun to end, it will keep you from adapting, thereby, keeping your happiness level raised for a longer period of time.  Hence, when my husband and I have these breaks from each other, research proves what I feel- that it makes our relationship happier and more enjoyable.  Bill Nye was right.  Science is cool.

  Today was my first Saturday free of the confines of employment in over three years.  It was wonderful.  I visited Big Talbot Island State Park to grab some shots of my family wearing glasses to use as advertisement in my father's office.  We had a lot of fun, complete with getting dirty, climbing trees, and picnicking.