This experience is common for many concert-goers and is commonly referred to as post-concert blues or post-concert depression. This can leave you in a bad mental state, where you can make bad financial decisions and experience low levels of flourishing and life satisfaction.

There are many ways for you to cope with this experience. However, hopping from one concert to another may be less ideal and possibly cause you to become stuck on the hedonic treadmill. 

Keep scrolling to learn more about post-concert depression, the hedonic treadmill, and practical ways to address these experiences more healthily.

Music and pleasure

Music is a stimulus that causes individuals to experience pleasure. A study showed that music allows individuals’ brains to release dopamine, commonly known as the “feel-good” hormone. This effect is similar when individuals experience tangible rewards such as food, money, or drugs, which eventually leads to craving for more. 

There are many ways for individuals to experience music, and attending live concerts is one of them. A study pointed out how live music events provide hedonic and eudaimonic outcomes. Hedonic well-being is the happiness that one obtains from present-moment pleasure and positive sensations. The hedonic outcomes that one could experience from live concerts are relaxation, comfort, fun, and pleasure.

On the other hand, eudaimonic well-being is the happiness that comes from having meaning, purpose, and personal growth. The eudaimonic impacts that live concerts generate are meaning, personal growth, expressiveness,  and self-actualization.

Nevertheless, too much of anything is never good. If you focus too much on the physical pleasures (hedonic well-being) of attending your concerts, you can drift further away from its eudaimonic aspects. This can cause you to fall into post-concert depression.

Understanding post-concert depression

Indeed, the pleasure one could obtain from music and all its attached experiences are beneficial. Unfortunately, like all good things, initial pleasure and positivity would eventually fade and lead you to long for that same happiness again. This could be the reason why concert-goers experience post-concert depression.

Despite having the word “depression,” this term is not a clinical diagnosis of depression after a concert. Post-concert depression (PCD) is a popular term that most people use to describe the negative states one experiences after attending a concert. Usually, individuals in this state experience:

• Sadness 
• Emptiness
• Lack of motivation, concentration, and excitement to return to normal life 
• Fears of never experiencing the same emotional high again
• Wanting to go back to the day the concert occurred

When experiencing PCD, some people may be motivated to go to other music concerts to cope with this negative experience. However, you must be more mindful before making this your go-to solution when experiencing PCD, as it could potentially make you stuck in an endless pursuit of a “hedonic treadmill.”

Understanding hedonic treadmill

The “hedonic treadmill” or “hedonic adaptation” is a phenomenon where individuals tend to pursue one pleasure after another.

This is because the initial surge of happiness after the concert experience eventually goes back to the stable baseline. This means that despite moving from one pleasure to another, individuals always get back to where they are (in terms of level of happiness), hence the use of the word “treadmill” in the concept.

The Hedonic treadmill is a human experience. However, going on a maladaptive and endless pursuit of pleasure would be less than ideal as it could generate several adverse such as:

• Lower life satisfaction. Engaging in maladaptive pleasure-seeking behavior would lead to lower life satisfaction and decreased flourishing. This shows that pursuing pleasure does not guarantee one’s overall sense of fulfillment and satisfaction with life.
• Unethical behaviors. A recent study explored the dark sides of the pursuit of happiness and found that people with hedonic motives are more likely to engage in unethical behavior. This is due to the strong association between hedonic motives and materialism, suggesting that individuals driven by hedonic motives may prioritize materialistic pursuits over ethical considerations.
• Overconsumption. The hedonic treadmill would be able to drive individuals to overconsumption. When purchasing things that excite you, you may find yourself attempting to recapture that feeling by purchasing more things you do not necessarily need. The never-ending pursuit of happiness and fulfillment through material possessions could be harmful as it can result in financial strain

When experiencing PCD, you may be motivated to plan other concerts to attend to experience a similar hedonic experience. However, when you keep purchasing ticket after ticket and hopping from one concert to the next, you may realize that this activity no longer brings pleasure as it was before. 

While concerts are the main topic of this article, examples of the hedonic treadmill also apply to everyday life, such as:

• The fixation on getting a raise
• Experiencing  milestones in a relationship, such as getting engaged or married
• Discovering new songs
• Buying new and increasingly expensive things

This is why you should be more deliberate in deciding whether being stuck in the hedonic treadmill cycle is the solution for your PCD. 

Breaking free from the hedonic treadmill

Here are some ways for you to address PCD healthily without having to be stuck in an endless cycle of a hedonic treadmill:

Being grateful for the experience

Once the sadness and emptiness sink in, one way to cope is to practice gratitude. This means not dwelling on the things that have passed by and how you may never experience the same thing again. Here are some ways you could do so.

• Reflect. Think back on the positive memories, acknowledge the enjoyment you acquire from them, and be grateful for being able to experience them.
• Relive. You could relive the experience by rewatching the photos and videos you took on the day of the concert. 
• Journal. Jot down the positive things that made you feel grateful in your journal. This could be a healthy outlet for you to bring back positive emotions.

Read more: From Gratitude to Life Satisfaction

Talk about it with fellow concert-goers

Another way to mitigate PCD is to talk about it with the friends you attend the concert with. If you went there alone, you could reach out to other fans through social media. You could talk about your favorite songs, moments, or interactions from that day, allowing you to recall the positive aspects of the experience. 

Best believe that you won’t be the only one who experienced the PCD. So, talking to them would also be a great way to handle the post-concert negative emotions. This would allow you both to address the negative emotions and realize that you are not alone. 

Realize that concerts are not your only source of happiness

Indeed, concerts may bring pleasure, but making this your sole source of happiness would eventually reduce its effect and may no longer be effective in navigating your PCD. Therefore, you should explore more activities that could bring you happiness. Here are a few of the many activities that could be your source of joy.

• Hitting the gym
• Traveling to other places
• Reading exciting books

Additionally, in finding happiness, you must pay attention to eudaimonic activities.  A few examples of these activities are: 

• Volunteering
• Learning new skills
• Engaging in creative pursuits

Basically, eudaimonic activities encompass things that pursue virtues and meaning, which generate long-term happiness instead of mere fleeting and temporary pleasure. 

Read more: Seeking Pleasure and The Pursuit of Happiness

Anticipate PCD

You can’t entirely avoid the upcoming PCD when you go to the next concert. However, you can anticipate it to avoid excessive PCD. This could be done by consciously acknowledging how this experience would be enjoyable and how it is normal for the excitement to eventually wear out afterward. 

Anticipating the negative emotions you could encounter would allow you to reduce the amount of discomfort that may come after the concerts.

In conclusion 

It is normal for individuals to experience a surge of negative emotions after experiencing a concert.

However, addressing the PCD by indulging in hedonic activities, such as hopping on to the next concerts over and over, would lead you to an endless cycle of a hedonic treadmill. Therefore, you must realize that the endless pursuit of materialistic things won’t be a sustainable way for you to address the PCD and achieve happiness.

So, when the post-show depression starts to hit, put down your credit cards, face the negative emotions, and diversify your source of happiness.

If you would like to see more resources on hedonic treadmill, check out the Happiness Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Happiness Science Labs today.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Freepik

The post Managing Post-Concert Depression and Breaking Free From the Hedonic Treadmill appeared first on Insights.

Sometimes, doing small things that make you happy, like having a hobby or eating your favorite food, can make you feel good. At other times, people go out of their way to achieve something meaningful to them. It might take more time, but they enjoy the process as they believe it brings happiness and satisfaction. 

So what activities should we pursue to be happy? Do people need to experience thrilling and fun activities to ultimately find happiness?

While individual differences and preferences might play a huge role in a person’s perception of happiness, being aware of the distinction between pleasure and happiness can help you make more intentional choices in the quest for happiness. People can then build a more rewarding and fulfilling life by giving precedence to actions and behaviors that enhance long-term happiness rather than just momentary pleasure.

In this article, the concepts of pleasure and happiness are explored, providing you with the distinction between the two and explaining how understanding this distinction can help you lead a life filled with joy and true happiness.

Definition of pleasure

Pleasure is often associated with hedonism and seeking out activities or experiences that bring us immediate gratification. And while there is nothing wrong with seeking pleasure from time to time, it is important to acknowledge that there is a distinction between pleasure and happiness.

In some cases, it can even be harmful to individuals who constantly seek pleasure from instant gratification. People who are always looking for pleasure can lose sight of other important things in their lives and feel empty when the pleasure wears off.

For example, sometimes people do things like abuse drugs or shop too much because they want to feel good without the deeper satisfaction that comes with happiness. Therefore, seeking pleasure will not always lead to greater life satisfaction and overall well-being.

Furthermore, scientists found that there is a happiness ceiling where the same activities or things that usually bring pleasure will no longer have the same effects. This phenomenon is related to the set-point theory, which explains several stabilizing factors that keep people close to their set point in happiness and subjective well-being. According to this theory, a person’s level of happiness is largely influenced by their personality, individual characteristics, and the life events they have experienced.

When people experience big life events, it can significantly increase positive emotions for a certain amount of time. However, the positive affect experienced is typically habituated and will soon return to normal.  This phenomenon is known as hedonic treadmill, where emotions go through similar processes as other sensory systems. 

Just as the sense of smell can quickly adapt so that certain scents disappear from one’s awareness, the human emotion system is also continuously adjusting to life circumstances and prior experiences.

A classic example of this is explored in a study about the happiness of lottery winners, where it is found that major lottery winners are not happier than the control group, despite the initial pleasure after winning the lottery.

Definition of happiness

If pleasure is mostly about feeling good and involves having positive experiences, happiness is more than just having fun; rather, it is a feeling of contentment that comes from achieving goals, connecting with others, and experiencing life’s beauty. 

While pleasure can be a part of happiness, it is essential to recognize that happiness is a broader concept that often involves a sense of meaning and purpose and a sense of belonging to something bigger than the self.

Happiness is a complex concept that has been studied and debated for centuries. It is a subjective experience that can be defined in various ways, depending on an individual’s values and beliefs. 

Some common definitions of happiness include a sense of well-being or contentment, positive emotions such as joy and pleasure, a sense of fulfillment and purpose, and general satisfaction with life. 

Other definitions emphasize the value of healthy relationships, individual development, and a sense of belonging to something bigger than oneself. 

While there are many theories of happiness, two of the most common approaches to understanding happiness are hedonic and eudaimonic views. Both theories acknowledge that happiness is an important part of human life, but they differ in how it is defined.

Hedonic approach

The hedonic approach defines happiness as the presence of positive emotions and the absence of negative ones. According to this approach, happiness is primarily related to the experience of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. While this definition is widely accepted, some critics argue that it ignores the importance of meaning and purpose in pursuing happiness.

Eudaimonic approach

Meanwhile, the eudaimonic view of happiness suggests that true happiness comes from having a sense of meaning in life and striving for personal growth. This type of well-being is often achieved by engaging in activities that bring pleasure, fulfillment, and purpose to one’s life.

Happiness vs. pleasure

Pleasure and happiness are two concepts that are often confused for the other. However, certain characteristics keep them distinct.

Source

While pleasure is a feeling of satisfaction derived mostly from external sources, happiness is an internal feeling of contentment and joy. 

Duration

Pleasure is often associated with hedonism and seeking out activities or experiences that bring us immediate gratification. Conversely, happiness focuses more on finding long-term satisfaction and building meaningful relationships with others.

Sense of being

Enjoyment can contribute to happiness, but it is unnecessary to experience overall happiness and satisfaction in life. For example, work can be fulfilling and meaningful, even if it is not necessarily fun. The same applies to pursuing hobbies that may take a lot of time and effort, such as playing musical instruments, where dedication and practice are essential, but people who consider it a hobby still do it out of enjoyment.

Additionally, some medical or neurological conditions can make people less happy, but they may still feel better overall and be happier with their lives. This finding suggests that happiness is a more complex and nuanced experience than the mere pursuit of pleasure.  

In conclusion

In conclusion, while happiness and pleasure can overlap, they represent two distinct concepts. Happiness is a deeper sense of contentment and satisfaction that can bring lasting joy, while pleasure is fleeting and often short-lived. 

To cultivate lasting happiness, you can focus on developing positive habits and routines that support well-being, such as practicing self-care, setting goals, and prioritizing meaningful relationships. But keep in mind that the quest for happiness should not disregard the value of pleasure and satisfaction, which are also essential parts of life. The key is to embrace these experiences with mindfulness, appreciating the moment while also realizing that they cannot replace the deeper joy and fulfillment that come from living a life with purpose.

It’s important to pursue pleasure and happiness in balance and allow them to inform each other. With the knowledge that pleasure can only be beneficial for the short term, you can consciously decide how much time to dedicate to activities that bring instant gratification and put more effort into pursuing other aspects of life that lead to happiness and lasting contentment.

If you would like to know more about hedonic treadmill, check out the Happiness Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Happiness Science Labs.

Photo by Elle Hughes on Pexels

The post Seeking Pleasure and The Pursuit of Happiness appeared first on Insights.