🙏 Why Nothing New Stays Exciting
Your brain resets to normal faster than you'd like.
Your Brain Resets To Normal Faster Than You'd Like
Psychologists call it hedonic adaptation — the well-documented tendency for even wonderful (and even terrible) life events to feel less intense over time, as people settle into a new "normal."
A classic study led by psychologist Philip Brickman found both groups drifted back toward the same baseline months later — happier windfalls and harder setbacks fade more than we expect.
One well-tested trick for fighting that: researchers have found that mentally subtracting something good from your life for a moment — picturing it never having happened — makes people appreciate it noticeably more.
Pick one good thing you've stopped noticing — a person, a comfort, a convenience — and spend 60 seconds imagining it was never part of your life. Then look at it again.