Anhedonia: when there is no longer pleasure in the simplest things in life

Anhedonia is the inability or reduced ability to feel pleasure. When a person suffers from this condition, they do not find interest in the activities, hobbies or experiences that used to give them pleasure and satisfaction. Furthermore, he loses the ability to anticipate good things and find motivation. Also, he has trouble accurately judging the effort required to achieve a certain reward.

A study published in 2020 in the journal JAMA Networksuggests that this absence of pleasure It has been linked to many mental disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and substance use disorder. People who suffer from chronic pain and Parkinson’s disease may also experience anhedonia.

Characteristics of anhedonia

While some people who suffer from anhedonia are mired in a mental block and suffer a decrease in their ability to appreciate pleasure (enjoy the appetite for food, sexual relations, leisure activities), others minimize their energy level and suffer a total disconnection from the world, which can be dangerous. Examples that show this symptom are phrases like “I don’t enjoy anything,” “I’m not interested in anything,” “Nothing excites me.”

When these phrases are established in our lives, perhaps we are facing the beginning of a depression or one upset of anxiety, in which the person becomes emotionally frozen and experiences a lack of activity for not being able to enjoy occupations that were previously fun and rewarding.

Situations of great difficulty, displeasure and stress lead to the appearance of this symptom. The patients who They suffer from severe anhedonia and carry a serious illnessthey feel socially isolated and withdrawn into themselves. In general, they maintain a certain detachment from life and your psychic system is abandoned to the granting of self-destructive ideas, coinciding with the inability to offer, deliver, relate, and establish any personal project.

The patient’s family environment does not assimilate his inability to experience any type of pleasurable sensation, which leads to a deterioration and distancing of interpersonal relationships. This can plunge the individual into a situation of isolation.

Components of anhedonia

The absence of pleasure has two different components, according to a work published in Translational Psychiatry:

Motivational: It implies a decrease in the impulse to seek pleasurable experiences.Consummatory: involves the reduced ability to experience positive emotions in response to activities that used to bring pleasure.

The experience of anhedonia may differ depending on the disorder the individual suffers from. For example, the aforementioned study reports that people with major depressive disorder and bipolarity may experience a deficit in the motivational component, but not the consummatory component. As a consequence, although they are capable of experiencing pleasure from pleasurable stimuli, they are not motivated to seek such experiences.

Types of anhedonia and their symptoms

Anhedonia can be divided into two types: physical and social. Both are correlated, but each one describes different deficits at the level of pleasure.

physical anhedonia

Characterized by reduced interest and pleasure in engaging in physical experiences such as food, exercise and sexual interactions. According to him Journal of the Belgian Association for Psychological Scienceits symptoms include:

Reduced interest in physical intimacy. Absence of pleasure when tasting food. Decreased enjoyment of physical sensations, such as dancing, the smell of flowers, or watching sunsets.

social anhedonia

It is characterized by reduced interest and pleasure in social engagement. While social anhedonia involves social withdrawal, it is not the same as social anxiety. According to research published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, its symptoms include:

Social withdrawal.Reduced social interaction.Preference for being alone.Reduced social skills.Absence of enjoyment of social interaction.Decreased ability to express emotions.Feigned emotions in social situations.

Causes of anhedonia or absence of pleasure

It has been suggested that the parts of the brain that allow people to anticipate rewards and motivate them to seek them, is compromised in those who suffer from anhedonia. This decreases the ability to make decisions that would lead to pleasurable experiences.

In addition, The severity of anhedonia was negatively correlated with the volume of the anterior caudate and ventral striatum. Furthermore, it presented a positive correlation with the activity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex for the treatment of positive information.

These results confirm what was revealed in a study published in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience on the relevance of the brain reward system, showing the importance of the ventral striatum in reward behaviors and pleasurable experiences.

From the journal Science Translational Medicine, they reported that children had lower levels of connectivity between brain regions involved with arousal and reward processing, as well as less activation in certain brain areas during reward anticipation.

Treatment of the absence of pleasure

Anhedonia can be difficult to treat and there is still no clear way to do it. However, there have been some promising developments in treatments specifically targeting this condition. Again, the publication of the journal Translational Psychiatry showed that a Ketamine infusion alone reduces anhedonia in people with treatment-resistant bipolar depression.

Clinical trials are also being carried out to develop a talk therapy for anhedonia. This intervention would consist of giving patients weekly tasks such as attending a party or inviting a friend to dinner. The objective is to eliminate the lack of motivation by having them participate in activities that they find rewarding.

Other alternatives are cognitive-behavioral therapy. Through which we will work on identifying negative and distorted thoughts, as well as preventing positive behaviors that promote the experience of pleasure and satisfaction.

In conclusion, anhedonia can have a significant impact on your well-being and your daily life. If you find yourself facing this reality and you have experienced a decrease in your interest in what you used to enjoy, it is crucial to recognize that you are not alone and seek help from a health professional. Seeking help and guidance is essential on this path.

Remember that taking this step is a brave act that can make a difference on your path to emotional well-being and rediscovery of pleasure in life.

You might be interested…