The loss or decrease in the ability to feel pleasure from things we once enjoyed has a name: anhedonia. While anhedonia appears to mimic boredom, it’s distinct in that it’s usually coupled with a loss of motivation to even give things a try. A person with anhedonia feels like there’s no point trying anything since nothing feels good anymore. Here’s everything to know about anhedonia, the mental health phenomenon that might be holding you back.
What Is Anhedonia?
Anhedonia is a common symptom of mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Since the onset of the pandemic, there has been a rise in these disorders, so it’s likely that anhedonia is affecting more people—and to a higher degree. But someone who hasn’t been diagnosed with clinical depression can still experience situational depression or situational anhedonia, says Sigal Levy, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Miranda Nadeau, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist in Austin, Texas, agrees. “It’s something a lot of people experience, at least at one point in their lives,” she says.
Why Does Nothing Feel Good Anymore?
When we look at the brain, there are regions that interact to form a reward circuit. A reward circuit tells you what is rewarding, interesting, or worthy to pursue. “If you’re having someone do a task where they have the opportunity to win money, for example, you’ll see these brain regions involved in the reward circuit having functional connections with each other,” says Jennifer Felger, Ph.D., an associate professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. The brain regions use a chemical called dopamine to communicate with each other. Dopamine is used to decide what’s rewarding and how you want to attain it. It’s also used to decide whether something is threatening. Felger explains that these reward circuit regions may not interact as well with each other in people with anhedonia. And therefore, this weakened communication between regions suggests unbalanced levels of dopamine, says Tiffany Ho, Ph.D., a cognitive neuroscientist and assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UC San Francisco. He also says that prolonged brain and body inflammation—which is often observed in someone with depression and anhedonia after experiencing stressful events—can set the stage for less interactive reward circuit regions.
Our Stressful World Isn’t Helping
Add to this the amplification of the brain’s threat circuit, which scans for things to avoid. “Now that we have so many fearful and emotional things going on in the world, the brain is responding more and more to threats and less and less to things that are rewarding, just based on what we’re exposed to,” Felger says. The reward circuit and threat circuit are constantly running in our brain, she adds, but when one is used more and takes up more brain energy, the other ends up running less efficiently.
How to Reverse Anhedonia, One Step at a Time
Engaging in important social connections simply means making contact with people you feel safe with, even if you don’t feel like socializing, says Nadeau. “Oftentimes people experience anhedonia and other symptoms of depression when they feel these social connections are weak.” Felger says to slowly reduce your electronic use in the hours leading up to bedtime, so you can reap some of the benefits to support sleep as well. Identify thinking patterns that could be detrimental to your journey to caring for yourself, such as a tendency for all-or-nothing thinking. All-or-nothing thinking looks like believing that in order to socialize, you need to have fun activities planned and conversations that flow easily the entire time, or it is not worth it. Becoming aware of this thinking pattern helps you start brainstorming what alternative thoughts might be more helpful instead and actually increase motivation. RELATED: Understanding the Difference Between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Can Help You Develop Healthier Habits “You might have negative views of yourself, combined with negative views of the world, which is not surprising at the moment, combined with negative views of the future, like ‘it’s not going to get better’ or ‘I’m always going to feel this way.’” To help restructure your beliefs, Nadeau suggests keeping a thought worksheet. On a sheet of paper, write about a situation that happened, the moods you felt, and the automatic thoughts you had (either of yourself, the world, and/or the future). Write down evidence that supports the main, automatic thought driving the moods, and evidence that does not support it. In doing this, you are positioning yourself to review all the information your brain is receiving, Nadeau explains, looking not only at the negative aspects, but the neutral and positive aspects. After doing this, reassess your moods without judgement. “It takes into account something negative and positive and draws them together,” Nadeau says, which makes it realistic and easier for you to adopt. RELATED: 10 Extremely Practical Ways to Feel Happier Every Day Start with small, manageable bursts of time, spending 15 minutes watching a TV show or walking outside. Levy encourages taking note of what sensations you experience during the activity, like the scratchy blanket across your knees as you watch a sports game, to practice being mindful of the moment. RELATED: 9 Unhealthy Coping Habits That End Up Hurting More Than Helping
