About me

Been struggling with Ahedonia a lot this year. Long story short, I've started reading (when I didn't feel dead inside or could muster the 'discipline') about the neuroscience of reward.

At my worst, I was in despair - Nothing was fun, nothing was exciting, nothing was interesting - I couldn't even watch a movie - I couldn't find comfort in video games, I wasn't there for my girlfriend, I didn't even enjoy staying on the laptop or phone anymore. But I had to do something - I was painfully bored dysphoric/felt pain inside, with nowhere to escape. I'd get home and say "okay, what do I do now, knowing that no single activity could get me "immersed". I would just switch tabs all the time. Horrible.

Eventually not even alcohol was an escape for me - It just felt more boring. Anyway, I'm feeling better now, better enough to even want and feel something when I write this post. So I figured I'd write two guides - This one is going to be on the psychological part and another one on the biochemical part (neurotranmistters etc) - I've done my research on PubMed and reading good papers/authors, so if anyone need references, let me know. What I am writing here is common sense in affective neuroscience. If you want to read more, I would suggest starting with Incentive Salience Hypothesis.

Moving on.

Reward is made of three subcomponents

1. Anticipatory Wanting/Liking - This is the main thing that's affected in anhedonia. Anticipatory wanting is that feeling of excitement about doing something - no matter how small: It could be being excited about downloading a new video game, going to gym, going to the mall, reading a book, improving yourself. Could be short term - being excited about trivial stuff like making coffee or medium-long term - being excited about going out tonight or visiting a country in 3 months.

This mechanism is supposedly mediated by dopamine. The opposite of anhedonia is addiction - when you want something no matter what, even though it's harmful for you.

As I said, anhedonia fucks this up - it doesn't only make us think that nothing is going to be enjoyable, it also makes us FEEL that as well and I think this is what gets us. We don't know how much pleasure-seeking we are until we get anhedonia.

2. Consummatory Liking - Just as it sounds, this is how much you enjoy something in the present. I am very hopeful about this - even though for us anhedonic people it feels both of them are affected, studies show that consummatory liking is mainly intact - the test they've done have been on rats though mostly seeing their reactions to sweet/sour taste. However, for me food tastes mostly the same even when I have no motivation to even get dressed.

While it may seem that we don't enjoy something as much - and it is true we don't, but that's mostly (in my opinion) because we have that anticipatory wanting when consumming something. So for example, let's say I'm playing World of Warcraft - First of all, when my anhedonia hits, I don't even want to turn on the game. And even when I play it, it seems boring. However, it seems that boring because I used to enjoy the anticipatory wanting of WoW - Such as, Hey, I want to get to level 12 with my warlock so I can learn that new skill - or I want to get that item or x.

I've associated this consummatory liking. So when I'm thinking about it like this, I know I may not get any anticipatory wanting so I try to be 'extremely' present when playing. That seems to activate another form of liking - the consummatory liking more, which is way more subtle but it is there and it is way more resistant to anhedonia.

This one is mediated by opioid and endocannabinoids it seems.

3. Reward Learning - This could be mainly after rewarding experiences, when you're about to do them again, you may not 'remember' or it may not feel like they've been pleasurable in the past.

This too is affected by anhedonia.

SO HOW DO I PUT THIS INTO PRACTICE?

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1. I don't trust my anticipatory wanting anymore - Whether I will feel good reading that book, playing that game, or going with the mall - my brain can only 'guess how it feel' and under anhedonia, it will always tell you it's not going to make you happy - that it's going to make 0 difference. I don't listen to that anymore - I try and go ahead and do things that I want to/have to and that I know made me happy in the past.
2. Moreover, I work my anticipatory wanting - I try to come up with a thing that used to be fun for me and I tyry to schedule it for the evening. Then, when I think of it, I won't feel anything - I will think it's going to be boring, but I try to stay more with that feeling so I can build my "anticipatory wanting" again like a muscle
3. Reward Learning - Moreover, when there was a mismatch, when my brain told me "Why bother going to get groceries, it's too hard, takes too much effort and you won't feel good", well, last time when that happened and I actually went to shopping I had a great time! So I try to remember this mismatch which makes me trust the anticipatory wanting less.
4. EFFORT - Perception of effort is fucked up by anhedonia. Everything 'feels' harder to do. But I try telling myself - effort is the price I have to pay for reward, the reward being anything, going outside, etc
5. Consummatory liking - When I am playing a game or do something, I try to be mindful. Try to enjoy it more so I can also build this muscle.
6. When I am in a coffee shop, like today, now for example, with my laptop and I feel bored, dysphoric, nothing seem fun, I remember how much worse I may feel home alone - in despair, full of boredom and no activity satisfying me. Then I also remind myself some evenings when I played it wow, at that time it seemed boring but after one or two hours of forcing myself ot play, I got in some kind of immersion, and the second day, looking back it felt quite...nice.
7. I try to be less hateful and cynical - I've realized when I started feeling anhedonic, I immediately started being hateful as well. I hated everything and everyone. Life was a joke. This only made it worse. I try to be 'grateful' as silly as it sounds.

Hope it helps. Feel free to send me a message if you have questions.