Happiness for Cynics podcast
This week, Marie and Pete talk about happiness set points and the hedonic treadmill and ask the question, are you blindly riding it?
Show notes
During the podcast Pete references a Ted talk about social inequality, please see attached below.
Transcript
[Happy intro music -background]
M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.
M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.
P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.
M: Hi.
P: And we’re back.
M: We’re back.
P: Laugh!
M: Regular as clockwork.
P: Like the passing of the sands through the hourglass,
M & P: so are the days of our lives. Laughter!
P: Oh my god, I can’t believe I remembered that. How many years ago was that?
M: Oh dear. Laugh.
P: Hey, I’ve got a story, I got a share story. Can I share?
M: Yes, share your story.
P: So, with all this work that we have been doing around happiness and consciousness and mindfulness and all that sort of stuff. I had an event happen last week where I got a letter in the mail which was horrible.
M: Oh.
P: And it resulted in a bad, a bad lose for the week.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: And I went to bed that night and I had nightmares that there was a Jaguar in my room and I woke up at 4 in the morning and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Obviously, I was stressed from this letter. I kind of went ‘oh no, what am I going to do? and I’m not sleeping well, and I thought this is a great opportunity for me to practise what I preach.’
M: Yes!
P: So, I got up in the morning and I had a PT appointment booked with my lovely trainer Alan and I was shattered, I was tired, I was like ‘oh I can’t do this’. But I got up and I went ‘No, I’m going to go and I trust Alan, he won’t push me if my body is not ready for it. So I got there and he said, ‘ooh you looked tired.’
M: Soft Laugh.
P: Yeah, I woke up at four a.m. and I couldn’t get back to sleep. And he went, ‘right.’ So we took the workout right back, but we did some stuff that was really challenging. And I walked out of that gym as I always do… feeling better than when I walked in.
M: Yep.
P: And I went straight home and I took action against this letter, straightaway.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: I rang up people, I got advice, it pushed me to be more proactive and if this had happened six months ago, I wouldn’t have taken those steps. I would have stayed in my little hole and buried my head in the sand and maybe not taken direct action. And I thought, this is really what we talk about.
M: Yes.
P: Taking control and doing the one step for one thing that you can take control of. For me, it was going and doing the exercise, even though I felt terrible. I was like ‘No, go and do it because you know that exercise brings about happy hormones, makes you more engaged and it gets you actioning things.
M: And not only that, you’re actually getting some social benefit out of it because you like your trainer.
P: Exactly.
M: You’ve been with him for a few years now.
P: Yeah, I have. Yeah, he’s fantastic. As I said, I always walk out of that place [feeling] better than when I walked in. So just a little tip, you know, even though you and I are the ones that are bringing all this stuff to our lovely listeners, we still have challenges.
M: Oh!
P: We still have things that screw up our day and present us with a aaahhhh! But we have the tools.
M: So, I was on a panel this week because it’s Mental Health Month.
P: Yay!
M: And one of the things that me and the other panellists talked about a fair bit was sleep.
P: Mmm.
M: And how it is the one thing that all of us have a bad night’s sleep every now and then, particularly those of us with pets or kids. It happens more often.
P & M: Laugh!
M: Not just angry or bad letters, but it’s one of those things that can really impact your happiness the next day.
P: Oh definitely.
M: It is just so common, and what I love about your story is that you recognised it.
P: Mmm hmm.
M: So, you’ve done enough self-assessment that you’re now understanding your triggers.
P: Yes.
M: And we all have triggers.
P: Yep.
M: My husband leaving his socks on the floor in the doorway. That’s one of my triggers. Laugh!
P: Constantly comes up on this show.
M: Laugh.
P: Every chance you get you remind us of that one, laugh.
M: Yep, being injured.
P: Yep.
M: So, I’ve just sports-wise, had a bad back for the last few weeks, have been struggling with that. Poor sleep, there’s a number of things for me that are my triggers and I’m now so much more aware of those triggers and therefore know to cut myself some slack.
P: That’s emotional first aid.
M: Absolutely, yep. So what are we talking about today?
P: I don’t want to say this ‘cause I’ll say it wrong.
M: Hedonic Treadmill.
P: Amygdala! Laugh. Nor-epinephrine!
M: Laugh! I think we had hedonistic treadmill written down some point.
P: We did! Because I remember thinking that sounds fun, laugh!
M: Instead of the hedonic treadmill. Laugh.
So, we are talking about… and I wanted to start, I love that we started with story. I was going to start with a quote, but we’ll get to the quote now and it is a famous Socrates quote and he once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
P: [Reverent sound of awe] Aaahhhh…
M: So I have a question for you Pete.
P: Oh, Q&A.
M: Are you loving your life?
P: Yes, very easy to answer that question.
M: I would love for our listeners at home to really ask themselves that question and truthfully, answer it because for a lot of people myself included in my twenties and thirties.
P: Yep.
M: I was living life, I wasn’t loving life necessarily. And there’s this theory called the hedonic treadmill, which a lot of us in Western society will have been blindly following because we haven’t examined our life. We haven’t spent the time examining the scripts that our parents and society and school and government gave us.
P: Ah, yes.
M: And we live in a Western consumerist society that teaches us from a very young age that success and achievement is important.
P: Yes.
M: And so we spend a lot of our lives going after the next thing.
P: Mmm.
M: Good grades, a good school, good job, a good company, a promotion, a house, a bigger house, a McMansion –
P: Laugh!
M: – the list goes on and on. And there’s this unwritten understanding that that will make things good for you and maybe happy.
P: You’re ticking the boxes.
M: Yep.
P: You’re ticking all the boxes that are presented for the recipe that was handed down from your parents and from their parents –
M: – for what’s important.
P: Exactly.
M: Yep. Now the research shows us that is our society and how we’re generally programmed unless your parents had a different view, or you went to an alternative school. That’s the prevailing theory and way that our society is set up.
Now the hedonic treadmill is a theory that we have a tendency to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness after major positive or negative events or life changes. So, if you get a promotion or a pay rise, your expectations and desires for, say a bigger house or a nicer car will rise accordingly, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.
P: Ok.
M: Similarly, if you get fired, for instance, you may be sad for a while, but then you’ll balance back out. And we talked the other day about your set point.
P: Yeah.
M: So, really what we’re saying here is that you’ve got a set point that you naturally and somewhat biologically sit at.
P: Yep.
M: On a scale of one to ten, you might sit at a six naturally, and if you get fired, then for a period time you might be a two or three or you might dip all the way to a one, but eventually you will come back to a six.
P: Personally I like to think of myself as a size eight.
M: Laugh! We’re not talking sizes.
P: Eight just fits me, laugh.
M: Well, actually, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned studying with the Happiness Studies Academy, and one of the things we do is regularly ask ourselves how we’re doing against – They have, a model with five elements, and you rate yourself against each of them.
P: Ah yeah.
M: I’m consistently high on those, generally I’m a nine.
P: I’m really good at four, one I’m shit on.
M: Laugh.
P: Although it’s going up lately. That’s good, Laugh.
M: Good. And, I think we tend to prefer some of them, for me, its intellectual.
P: Yeah, there are things that you’re drawn to, and they’re the ones that we might spend a bit more time on. And it’s, I love that exercise because it does highlight the fact that even if you’re just looking at that diagram or those five sections and you can say to yourself ‘yeah, number three’s a bit dodgy.’
M: Yes.
P: You know that you have to focus on that, or at least to devote a little bit more time to that. Or ask yourself the question. What am I doing to satisfy number three?
M: Yep, and to bring balance across all of them? Because we know that having that imbalance leads to a lot of issues.
P: Yep.
M: Yep, or put you at risk when those bad events happen, of not being able to bounce back or be more resilient?
P: Exactly, yeah. This is what I’m saying about my story is that I felt like I had more tools at my disposal. So, when I woke up at four I was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be that night. It’s going to be, I’m not going to, yeah, I’m out, I’m done.’
M & P: Laugh.
P: Get comfortable with that and then make the adjustment. And then it was, it was the next morning and I’m like right. I’m going to get on top of this bang, bang, bang. I was much more active than I’ve ever been before, Yay Me 😊
M: And they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
P: Are you calling me an old dog?
M: Laugh, I just did.
P: Laugh!
M: So, what this means when you look at it from the hedonic treadmill point of view is that chasing those material things might make you happier in the moment. But it’s not going to raise your set point. It’s not going to make your subjective well-being or your happiness levels higher overall.
P: This comes back to that example we had a few weeks ago about the guys in the New Zealand who got the promotion, and we’re working harder and longer and their perceived happiness was higher and you are all ‘Mmm, I’m not sure about that one, I challenge that.’ This is the same thing.
M: Exactly, yep.
P: Were they happier because of what they’re achieving? Or is it that they’re happier because that was what society had set for them with the goals that they wanted.
M: So, this is all saying the opposite of what that that study said, which is that you’ll only get a small hit to your happiness levels and then you come back to your base line a set point.
P: Mmm.
M: So chasing the success, the bigger house, you know, the unit, the house, the McMansion and the white picket fences and going up and up and up –
P: Yep.
M: – will make you feel so happy the day that you put the sold sticker on the board and you take your photo in front of your house.
P: Laugh!
M: And share it on Facebook with everyone, and you’ll be feeling on top of the world that day within a small amount of time, a tiny amount of time. That house just becomes your new normal, and you go back to your base happiness level.
P: That’s when you get the $200,000 reno.
M: Exactly, and then it’s more and more and more and for today’s kids, I really feel sorry for them because they’re so much more able to compare themselves against others because of social media. Again, we’ve spoken about that before as well that it makes it really hard to live and to take yourself out of those societal expectations, particularly when social connection is so important, particularly teens.
P: Yeah.
M: And to not buy into having the latest shoes and latest jeans and the latest –
P: Yes.
M: – and having a car. I Remember the kids who had cars. I was so jealous.
P: Me too, laugh!
M: Yep, absolutely so we know that there’s a number of things that make people happier. And the number one thing is social connection.
P: This is your big thing, this is your big platform? You love your social connections?
M: Well, it’s where all the research starts. Any model out there, whether you’re talking Martin Seligman or Tal Ben Shahar or any of the positive psychology bigwigs out there all have something about relationships or social connection. And we know about the Harvard study, the longest longitudinal study in the world, which comes out over and over again with strong social connections and blue zones.
P: Yep.
M: So not only does make you happier, you lived longer. You don’t die [early].
P: That’s coming out in the health research that’s coming out as well. It’s all about the bio-social model.
M: Yep.
P: Not just being medical model, but it’s about the social influences and the environment that which you live and the connections that you’ve got in the support mechanisms that are around you. And this is coming out with all the research that’s coming through on global health studies.
M: And why there is such a concern from World Health Organisation and so many of the other global and national bodies, medical bodies about loneliness in particular and old age.
P: They’re finally recognising that that’s a real factor in the situational influences, which comes down to environment under the international classification of functioning, which was one of the big shifts in health going on the moment.
M: Absolutely, so if you want to raise that set point going after the newest and the latest, and the achievement is not the way to do that.
P: What is the way, Marie?
M: Social Connection, number one.
P: Yep.
M: Purpose and Meaning, we’ve said before.
P: Yep.
M: Again, why people who retire are often depressed within a year, and why people who lose their jobs quickly get depressed. There are so many examples of when purpose and meaning are taken away or abruptly stop that people decline very quickly.
P: So, is that about asking the question a little bit earlier in your life cycle? Not waiting until you retire to go, ‘oh, what do I really want to do?’
M: I think it’s about having a growth mindset. That’s the latest [thing] that everyone’s talking about. So that your never not learning and growing there’s a great quote, I have no idea who said it.
P: Laugh.
M: And it was, “I play the violin, I do art, I play soccer, blah blah blah… and the person says ‘Oh my gosh, you are so accomplished.’ They said, no, no, no, I don’t do any of them well, but I do them all.”
P: Laugh.
M: And that is it, it’s about learning new things. So if you learn a new skill every year and never master any of them. That’s just as good as spending your whole life trying to master something else that you’re passionate about.
P: Something that you’re passionate about at any level is good, and curiosity.
M: Yes, so that’s where the passion and meaning comes from. What really excites you and how can you spend your time? It could be gardening. It could be so many things it could be raising your kids or your grandkids. But, it’s having something that really gets you excited.
P: Hmm.
M: And then the last one, again, Healthy Mind and Body habits.
P: Oh, yes.
M: So, if you didn’t have that habit the other day of going to the gym and that commitment as well, which is good to your PT, you might have skipped out.
P: Yeah, definitely. Would’ve been so easy to go ‘I’m not going this morning because I’m too tired’, but because there was that routine, if you like, yeah [I did go].
M: Mmm hmm.
P: I’ve even done it on other days as well, where I’ve woken up, and …I guess it’s a throwback to the days of being a dancer. You wake up, you do class. That’s the first thing you do every single morning. And no matter how bad you feel, even when you’ve been out partying and you go to in the first Port de bras and first position, oy vey! Laugh. You soon feel better because you’re moving your body around, and it is routine that actually helps you a lot with that. It’s not motivation it’s habit.
M: Absolutely. So, that’s why we talked about that last one being about habits, the healthy mind and body. So lastly, what are the steps to help get off that Hedonic treadmill?
P: Oooh.
M: How do we get off this treadmill of needing to succeed and wanting more, more, more, more.
P: So more handstands!
M: Handstands are great, I like handstands.
P: Laugh! Is it about throwing something into the mix that isn’t normal, is that how you do it?
M: I think the first step is listening to our podcast right now.
P: Ha, ha!
M: Understanding that you’re on that treadmill.
P: Oooh, the self-confession.
M: It’s what we said with Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” So if this podcast has helped you do one thing, it’s to maybe look at whether you’re on that treadmill. Are you looking, as soon as you’ve got one thing, at what’s next? What’s next? What’s next? And working longer hours and harder to get your promotion and buy a new car and to get you nice holiday because everyone else had a nice holiday.
P: Yeah, yeah. My name is Peter Furness and I’m a hedonist, laugh! [on the hedonic treadmill]
M: Well, there can be balance, right? We don’t have to give it all up?
P & M: Laughter!
M: I’m not advocating for you to go live in a cardboard box on the street.
P: Laugh. Well, it’s interesting that when I first read the title on being the hedonistic treadmill, I was like, ‘This is going to be fabulous, it’s all about doing what you want and going against the grain and being flamboyant and you know.
M: This is me!
P: Yeah, laugh. Like running naked through the forest, all that sort of stuff.
M: Laugh.
P: I didn’t realise it was a bad thing, laugh.
M: Yeah, no… you don’t want to be, it’s, it’s the rat race, really.
P: Yeah.
M: We’re really talking, we’re really having a go at the rat race and consumerism.
P: And being distracted by that as well. It’s easy to buy into other people’s goals.
M: Yes.
P: What your goals are not necessarily going to match with what my goals are.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: Thankfully, they cross over a lot in terms of holidays and whatnot. But it’s recognising that… even your other half, even your significant other, if their goal is slightly different to yours, that’s okay, because as long as you both have passion involved, then somewhere the crossover can occur.
M: Yeah. And I think also understanding that generationally things change. For our grand parents who went through the Depression, securing your financial future was critical to survival.
P: Yeah.
M: In our world of over-abundance, it is not that important.
P: We also have more choice. Well, too much choice as we’ve talked about before.
M: Yep. And when we talk about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, our ability to secure our basic needs is so much easier in today’s society.
P: Yeah, and that’s getting better. The Global Burden of Disease study came out last year, – and I’m getting all this research is great!
M: Laugh.
P: The study revealed that from the years 2000 to 2010, we’ve done a really good job from the Millennium Statement, which was done in 2000 by the UN of reducing, poverty, reducing child malnourishment.
M: From the Global Sustainability Goals?
P: Yeah, that came from the same publication yeah. But we’ve done a really good job in there in terms of the SDI countries, the Social Demographic Index, basically the poorer nations, or what used to be called the underdeveloped nations or undeveloped nations. They’ve done a really good job in balancing out that inequality.
M: Yep, and you’ll find, there’s a great book by Hugh van Cuylenberg called The Resilience Project, and he went to India and then Nepal, and he spent some time in the Himalayas. And he said he met the poorest people he’s ever met. But they were also the happiest.
P: Mmm, yeah, yeah.
M: And, of course, they were poor but they had their basic needs met. So, just like we’re talking about here with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and you look at some high schools around Sydney, these kids that have it all –
P: Mmm hmm.
M: – and they’re nowhere near as happy as those kids in Nepal.
P: Yes, I have watched a wonderful Ted talk with a gentleman, I can’t remember his name, I have to put it in the notes. But he talks about the role of inequality in our society, and how that is damaging us and that we need to address that inequality and it is about happiness. In a sort of backwards loop, he talks about the health impacts, mainly of it coming through. But those top countries like America [U.S.], the amount of violence that is on the streets in America is hugely disproportionate when you look at other countries globally.
M: Mmm.
P: And he says that this is a direct result of lack of trust, of the lack of the fairness on how this is.
M: Yep.
P: It’s eroding our social fabric.
M: So, that is a great point as we start to wrap up.
So, the first thing you need to do to get off the hedonic treadmill is to understand that you’re on it.
The second thing is to stop comparing yourself to others. So even if you are in America [U.S.] and on minimum wage and life is not frickin fair. Being upset about it is not going to do you in your life any good.
P: Yeah, you’ve got to suck it up princess.
M: Unless you want to be miserable for your whole life; Then go for it, go be miserable. If you’ve got your basic needs met, you can put food on the table and you’re not under too much undue financial pressure, and a lot of people in the States are, and in Australia. But if you’ve got those basic needs met than constantly trying to keep up with the Joneses is only doing yourself a disservice.
P: Yep.
M: And so, when we talk about the hedonic treadmill that is the key to getting off it, stop comparing yourself to other people.
P: Find what’s true for you.
M: And then, lastly, re-focus on the things that will raise your set point.
- The Social Connection;
- Purpose and Meaning; and
- Healthy mind and body habits.
P: And doing handstands.
M: Absolutely.
P: Laugh.
M: And on that note –
P: Handstand away, laugh!
M: Wishing you a happy week.
P: Still laughing!
[Happy exit music – background]
M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.
P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.
M: Until next time.
M & P: Choose happiness.
[Exit music fadeout]
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