Hedonic adaptation. Happinnes exists! Do you think there is a difference between pleasure and satisfaction? Of course yes. Pleasure is a momentary and rather short-term process. It is capable of raising our level of happiness in a short time. Emotions pass quickly, but they tune our memory to maintain psychological stability in stressful circumstances. Satisfaction is a special state of flow in which many factors that are significant to us must coincide. Let me give you a simple example: you like your work and it is connected with a hobby (this can be scientific and research activities) or with something that you never get tired of doing. You realize yourself, you feel “in place”. The payment makes you happy and you don’t burn out because even if there is “overtime,” you don’t encounter that much resistance within yourself. And most importantly, you get satisfaction from this whole process. This is the state of flow that you enter throughout the day. Helping friends and volunteering are also considered flow states. At the moment of the help itself, you may not feel happy. But over time, its level may increase. Hedonic adaptation is a mechanism of our psyche that maintains our level of happiness at a consistently certain level. That is, a joyful state cannot last forever (just like grief and unhappiness). Sooner or later the level will stabilize. For our psyche, excessive joy or sadness is stress and its defense mechanisms rush to return everything to the previous level, that is, a person gradually gets used to both good and bad. For example, there is a difference between an exciting trip and a delicious dinner. The joy will be the same and the effect of the journey will last longer, but then, in both cases, the psyche will take us to a certain level. This is why we so quickly get used to happiness (as well as to unhappiness) and set new heights for ourselves, because the old ones cease to please us. All areas of human life are subject to hedonic adaptation. Scientists have proven that the level of happiness (as well as the readiness for it) is inherited, and the way we bring it to life is influenced by personal characteristics and the willingness to overcome difficulties. What can you do to prolong these wonderful moments of happiness? -realize that most life circumstances are greatly overestimated and do not affect the state of happiness; - stop modeling situations of the future, you need to stop and check with reality; - the pursuit of happiness makes us unhappy, and the situation “here and now” is perhaps the best that can happen; - enjoy simple little things; - understand that it is not in the material and material goods are the very happiness;