Do you know that feeling of having really want to do something and when the time comes, haven’t you enjoyed it as you imagined? It’s not that the plan was bad, it’s just that you weren’t as excited as you thought… If that’s the case and it’s only happened to you sporadically throughout your life, you don’t have to worry. If watching the clock is your favorite pastime while doing things you first wanted, then you suffer from anhedonia, which is increasingly detected in psychologists’ consultations.
Defined by the psychologist and director of Psychologists Madrid Cepsim, it is the inability to feel pleasure: «It is usually accompanied by the loss of feeling satisfaction from doing activities and can be a momentary state produced by some external factor or it can be a symptom of a problem. major, such as depression, addictions, among other disorders.
The anhedoniaas indicated by Inmaculada Vázquez, psychologist, can occur in several areas:
1. Personal sphere: referring to food, sexual intimacy and self-care in general.
2. Social sphere: reluctance when it comes to interacting with other family members, friends, or meeting new people.
And it is not that, explains psychologist Pilar Conde, from Clínicas Origen, one cannot experience apathy and withdrawal from things at some specific moment, since to some extent all people go through it at some point. Anhedonia is the prolonged loss of pleasure. “Furthermore, this does not occur abruptly, but rather it does so progressively: little by little the person moves away from their usual interests and leaves behind the motivations that drive them daily.”
What if I have anhedonia?
The symptoms of anhedonia are a lack of vitality and pleasure. That is, to have possibility of enjoying. According to Andrés Quinteros, to identify it “it is important to make a thorough assessment, but I can begin to suspect that I may suffer from it if I begin to lose satisfaction from doing activities that I previously found pleasurable, such as social activities, my favorite ‘hobbies’ or sexual relations.” ».
If it occurs on a personal level, the sufferer does not feel like eating, for example. «The defining thing is the lack of pleasure in the feeding process, although it can be detected beforehand. That is, there is a reluctance, a lack of interest, for example, in eating and one of its consequences is the lack of pleasure experienced when carrying out the activity that we are observing,” says Inmaculada Vázquez.
In the social sphere we talk about anhedonia when the person does not want to be with their loved ones and, even less, engage in social activities with strangers. “There is a social withdrawal,” emphasizes psychologist Vázquez.
It should be noted that just because there is some activity that previously gave us pleasure and now does not, it is not an indicator of anhedonia. As Andrés Quinteros says, if before you really liked playing soccer and now you don’t, it doesn’t mean that we have loss of the ability to feel pleasure because maybe now we like something else.
“I believe that all people at some point in their lives can experience or experience a certain difficulty in enjoying the things of daily life for contextual reasons that cause discomfort (difficulties with a relationship, work, etc.),” the expert clarifies.
Therefore, to speak of anhedonia, it has to affect the ability to feel pleasure in a sustained and constant manner and in various aspects of our lives. Furthermore, it is generally accompanied by demotivation, apathy, reluctance, and lack of interest.
Leave anhedonia behind
The anhedonia It is not a disease; It is a symptom that can also appear associated with other diagnoses such as bipolar disorder and other serious mental problems. Also in anxiety and grieving processes. It has no age, since it can arise at any time in life, without respecting children and adolescents, in whom anhedonia is usually accompanied by signs and manifestations of irritability.
«It is difficult for the person to overcome a stage of anhedonia on their own. You need the support of your environment and if it is more pressing you need professional support,” emphasizes Inmaculada Vázquez.
Andrés Quinteros points out some general recommendations to overcome it:
– Don’t isolate yourselftalk about what you feel with your loved ones and ask them for help.
– Try to maintain your routine and activities: Don’t expect to be motivated to do the things you used to like, do them and then motivation can appear little by little.
– Set small goals and objectivesstart trying to do simple and easy activities, (even if as I said you don’t feel like it) and that can provide some satisfaction.
– Try to maintain healthy habits. Eating healthy and exercising is essential.
On the other hand, it is also important to highlight the figure of those around people with anhedonia. The psychologist Inmaculada Vázquez explains that these people tend to feel frustration: «As far as possible, it is recommended that those who are close know themselves as well as possible. In this way they will be able to manage the frustration they feel in a different way and will not pour it on those who suffer from anhedonia.
On the other hand, it is important to maintain a good emotional connection with the person who has had episodes of anhedonia. This way, when your environment begins to appear, you can detect it and act. The most effective way to act is to assume that that person is suffering and what they are doing is the best they can do at that moment.
Likewise, from the recognition of the difficult situation they are going through, it is useful to maintain support for the person, this is when they need us most even though it may seem otherwise. This accompaniment is in itself of great help, although it may not have immediate effects. Finally, it is useful to support what gives that person some vitality, for example, taking walks in a certain place. It is from vitality that pleasure is recovered.
Finally, staying with that person and taking care of the relationship with them once the anhedonia episode has been overcome is also essential. Arguably, it is the way in which we can reduce the likelihood of anhedonia reappearing.
#Anhedonia #reason #people #enjoy
