How avoiding great food, shopping, and other pleasures will change your life

Self-restraint is the cornerstone of many religious and philosophical movements. And this is no accident. There is ample scientific evidence that giving up the frills and little joys in life actually makes people feel happier.

How giving up pleasure improves your life

There are two reasons why people who limit themselves have more pleasure in life than those who allow themselves whatever they want.

1. Your senses will sharpen

Any gourmet will say: in order to enjoy the real taste of tea or coffee, you cannot add sugar to the drink. The same thing happens with life. If you add too much sweetness to it - pleasure and entertainment - the taste of simple things dulls. To make life "tastier" again, it is necessary to abandon the excesses for a while.

This thesis also has experimental confirmation. In one small studyGive It Up: A Strategy for Combating Hedonic Adaptation scientists have divided chocolate lovers into three groups. The first one was offered to eat it as much as possible. The second was allowed to include anything in the diet, without denying oneself, including the beloved

delicacy. Participants from the third group were forbidden to touch chocolate at all.

The experiment lasted a week. The researchers then gave each test subject a piece of chocolate. And they asked the participants to rate the pleasure that each of them received. It turned out that the volunteers from the third group experienced maximum joy. They felt the taste of chocolate more sharply, described it in brighter colors and talked about a greater level of pleasure in general.

The same effect holds true when it comes to intangible things.

So, in another studyInterrupted Consumption: Disrupting Adaptation to Hedonic Experiences scientists briefly distracted people from pleasant activities - for example, listening to their favorite music or relaxing sessions in a massage chair. It was found that when participants returned to pleasure after the break, they felt it more sharply.

2. You will learn to better control your desires.

Deliberately giving up pleasure increases composure. Or, to speak in terms that preferTeaching Tip Sheet: Self-Efficacy psychologists, self-efficacy - that is, confidence in the ability to control their own behavior.

In fact, such a refusal takes desires out of the control of the oldest, reptilian part of the brain and transfers it to the prefrontal cortex. Thanks to this, we can manage them consciously. It's a tricky process, but worth it.

Various studiesSelf-efficacy and its relationship with satisfaction with life and happiness among university students, Relationship between self-efficacy and life satisfaction according to exercise participation in obese female university students show that high self-efficacy is associatedMeasuring career self-efficacy: Promoting confidence and happiness at work. with a more pronounced sense of satisfaction from life.

How to give up pleasure so that it brings maximum joy

However, not all self-restraints improve life. For this to happen, they must meet certain criteria.

1. Give up everything superfluous only voluntarily

In 2005, scientists studiedGiving up and giving in: The costs and benefits of daily sacrifice in intimate relationships. those sacrifices that people make in romantic and family relationships. It turned out that the main thing in this case is motive.

When a person squeezes himself into something of love to a partner, it brought him joy. But if fear or other negative emotion became the cause of self-denial, the person felt only irritation and even anger.

In other words, washing the dishes just to avoid being yelled at will lead to bitterness and frustration.

2. Start with minor sacrifices

Limiting yourself to something familiar and meaningful can be difficult. If you decide to do it in one fell swoop, there is a great risk that you will not be enough for a long time. Very soon you will break loose and return to where you started. But only exhausted, with the experience of self-disappointment.

To prevent this, do not ask too much of yourself. Start with small constraints - what matters to you is the sense of success you will experience as you deal with them. The more successful the experience is, the easier the next steps will be for you.

For example, if you plan on cutting out sweets, start by simply reducing the amount of sugar you put in your tea. One spoonful instead of two until it becomes a habit. Then reduce the already new habitual amount. And so on until sugar will not disappear from your life at all.

3. Alternate between pleasure and rejection

The thought that you will never taste that sweet cake again in your life (even if it increases your weight and the risk of diabetes) can be desperate. And despair is not far from defeat. Therefore, you should not deny yourself something with the wording "forever".

To feel the taste of life more sharply, it is enough just to arrange a "vacation" from pleasures from time to time.

For example, agree with yourself that once a month you will spend a week without TV or dessert at night. Returning to your favorite TV shows or cakes will make you feel happy.

Alternatively, impose some inconvenience on yourself from time to time. Let's say once a week take cold shower - this will help you experience more pleasure when you return to warm baths.

4. Remember self-restraint is a blessing.

Happiness is not equal to the pleasure of comfort. Life has two sides, and both are equally important, since they exist only in comparison with each other. Without darkness, it is impossible to understand what light is. Without sorrow - what is joy. Without hunger and fatigue - how cool it is to be well-fed and rested.

By experiencing temporary inconveniences, you are actually giving yourself the opportunity to understand how great life is. And how happy you are with a delicious meal, a healthy sleep in a clean bed, the ability to hold hands with your loved one, or buy yourself cute knick-knacks.

And, in the end, voluntary self-restraint is a manifestation of power over animal instincts. They are irrefutable proof that you are human.