Dopamine Vs Hedonic Adaptation

[Thetruthseeker]

I’ve watched Leo’s videos on ‘successful people are not happy’ (which is possibly one of my favourite videos that changed my life) - and he describes that never ending wheel of achievement and cycle as hedonic adaptation

im learning more about the effects of dopamine and wondering if this is directly linked to hedonic adaptation or is it something slightly different? 

[Carl-Richard]

If you do something that is not beneficial for survival, your body will tell you by sending some signals. If you keep eating cake after you've had enough cake, your body will tell you by making it taste bad. If you touch a hot stove, it will feel bad. If you don't eat food when you're hungry, it will feel bad. To maximize pleasure, you must do the right things at the right time.

Your body as a self-perpetuating life system needs to maintain a steady internal state (homeostasis) in order to survive. Survival means to keep a fixed boundary between yourself and the environment, and complex creatures like humans have evolved elaborate behaviors to aid in this process (avoiding predators, routine feeding behaviors, seeking shelter etc.) along with more basic physiological processes (maintaining a constant body temperature, acidity, water content etc.). 

The nervous system is one of many systems that work to control such behavior and maintain homeostasis by using signalling molecules like dopamine. Dopamine is involved in things like movement, motivation and seeking rewarding stimuli, but pleasure only happens once you do the work that dopamine tells you to do, and when the work is over, systems like the serotonin and opioid system take over (movement stops, you rest, sleep etc.).

You seek what is pleasurable because it aids in your survival, and things that give you pleasure generally do aid in your survival. If you go against your own survival and homeostasis, your signalling systems will tell you this, and hedonic adaptation is one such process, i.e. feeling less pleasure from eating more cake after you're full, or drinking more water after quenching your thirst, or having sex for the 12th time in a day. There is a myriad of different adaptation mechanisms in your body that all work together to make your life possible  

The need for success and achievement is a higher-order expression of deeply rooted survival drives, and they follow the same adaptation mechanisms and use the same signalling systems as the lower ones. For example, the movement through a social hierarchy is tracked by serotonin levels. Your motivation to finish a project is driven by dopamine etc. Your signalling systems also generally respond to changes in stimuli. If you sit on your butt for a while, the feeling of pressure that you experience while initially sitting down slowly disappears. When a stimulus becomes persistent and static, you adapt to it by decreasing the receptiveness (unless there is a positive feedback loop that increases it, like with certain pain pathways).

This tendency to respond to change is what drives people to constantly seek new stimuli and explore new environments. It's why millionaires keep earning more money even though they have all the money in the world. It's why the biggest bodybuilders think they look small in the mirror. Experiencing change is also a source of strength and health as it challenges your system in new ways, engages a fuller range of capacities and resources, and perks your senses. Experiencing stagnation makes you numb, depressed and nihilistic. In many ways it's the voluntary confrontation with change that creates desire, drive, meaning and not least pleasure.

[Epikur]

@Carl-Richard

Good job

[FlyingLotus]

You may want to read that post.  Halfway through the post there's a section on dopamine chasing and why it's unsatisfying.  Dopamine is about wanting pleasure, not receiving pleasure.  Wanting and receiving pleasure take place in different parts of the brain, which is why dopamine chasing leads to you needing more stuff to feel the same effect.   

 

[Thetruthseeker]

@Carl-Richard thanks for such a brilliant and insightful reply 

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Thetruthseeker said:

@Carl-Richard thanks for such a brilliant and insightful reply 

Thank you ?

[Captain_Diabetes]

the reason why successful people not happy very much depends on the fact that the ones that are not happy you will hear them or someone bitch aobut them ,,,,but what about the millions of happy successful people 

 

the reason ''SOME'' successful people  are not happy is because they no longer have a goal.  maybe they once had a goal to be a famous actor or have alot of money once they accomplish this goal they will start feeling terrible but this can be fixed with a new goal in mind however alot of these people just end at their goal and avoid making new ones . a bodybuilder thinks he is small and keeps motivating himself to get bigger however even those types can be sad inside because this goal never really has an end.. this is another thing to consider that a goal needs to have a real end to feel accomplished and then a new goal or multi goals need to be in order for dopamine to keep giving you the thrill of going out and seeking out this goal.

 

i guess my point is there are just as many successful people who are happy as the sad ones.. its just half of the successful people got successful by a fault goal to begin with or did not have multi goals while the successful people are indeed happy  and do exist so just dont assume that all successful people are not happy as thats not true