Why The Happiness Highs Never Last: Understanding Hedonic Adaptation
New job, holiday, big win… it fades.
The Treadmill We All Run On
Have you ever noticed how quickly the extraordinary becomes…ordinary? That the things you crave go from wow to whatever once you’ve got your hands on them?
The brand-new iphone that felt life-changing when you unboxed it now just lives in your pocket.
The once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Serengeti already feels like a distant memory.
That Zimmermann dress you had to have? It now hangs alongside everything else in your wardrobe.
Psychologists call this phenomenon of things quickly losing their shine, hedonic adaptation - sometimes nicknamed the hedonic treadmill.
The Happiness Set Point
When something amazing happens - a new job, your dream wedding, getting the qualification you worked so hard for - your happiness spikes and you’re overwhelmed with joy.
But before long, the novelty wears off and those milestones melt quietly away into everyday life.
The dream house becomes just where you live - with broken boilers and bills to pay
The promotion becomes just the job - with all the politics and pressure that come with being more senior
The new romance shifts from fireworks in the honeymoon phase to routine and whose turn is it to do the bins?
Sooner or later, you slip back to your emotional “set point” - the baseline of happiness where you started. As Ian McEwan wrote in Enduring Love: “People often remark on how quickly the extraordinary becomes commonplace… We are highly adaptive creatures.”
Think about how summer already feels like a distant memory by September. The school runs return, the days shorten, and almost immediately many of us start planning our Christmas holidays and winter sun getaways. Why? Because we crave the next thing and our next fix of excitement.
The Treadmill Trap
This cycle - chasing the next thrill, adapting, and chasing again - is what psychologists mean by the hedonic treadmill. In our misguided pursuit of happiness, we run faster, collect more, and seek bigger highs… only to end up back where we started. It’s why the magic of your kid’s new toy vanishes in hours (hey, at least it bought you five minutes) and why the fitness tracker is now clutter in your bedside table.
How to Step Off the Treadmill
The trick isn’t chasing bigger highs. Lasting happiness rarely comes from them. Instead, it comes from smaller, repeatable moments that don’t fade so quickly:
A morning ritual that grounds you – that first quiet coffee before the day begins
A conversation that makes you laugh – silly banter with your kids
Gratitude for what’s already here – the joy of bringing a plant back to life
Tiny adventures woven into everyday life – saying yes to an unexpected invite
These are the moments less prone to adaptation – the ones that make life colourful and meaningful. Practices like gratitude retrain the brain to notice what’s already good, creating a steadier baseline of wellbeing. Research shows that frequent small joys boost happiness more than fleeting highs, because our mood is shaped by the average of daily experiences, not the occasional peak.
The Takeaway
Hedonic adaptation is wired into us. Our brains normalise even the best highs. But that doesn’t mean happiness is out of reach. It means the antidote is less – less chasing, less craving, less upgrading.
And more: embracing rituals and feel-good moments that keep life glowing – the relief of ticking off a nagging task, the buzz after a workout you nearly skipped, losing track of time catching up with a friend.
We can’t stop hedonic adaptation, but we can outsmart it so our happiness doesn’t hinge on temporary highs.
That’s the secret to living life in colour. That’s the Rainbowtarian way.