2023-08-05 19:31:15
Anhedonia means a state of not enjoying life and is also effective in some diagnostic processes. It is also a symptom used in the diagnosis of certain diseases. This word is derived from the Greek words “an” (you) and “hedone” (pleasure).
Is there really a disease of not enjoying anything??
So, is not enjoying anything (anhedonia) just an abstract concept, or does anhedonia have a biological basis? A neuroimaging study by Harvey et al. (2007) shows that the degree of anhedonia in humans is directly proportional to ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) activity in the human brain and inversely proportional to ventral striatum activity. Considering that the VMPFC plays a role in preventing emotional behaviors and providing automatic control, and the ventral striatum plays a role in controlling the brain’s reward system and behavioral motivations, it can be said that anhedonia has a biological basis.
What is social anhedonia and physical anhedonia?
When we look at the types of anhedonia, we see that some researchers study it in two groups, social and physical. Although social anhedonia does not enjoy spending time with people; Physical anhedonia involves indifference to physical stimuli such as food, exercise, music, and sexuality. In other words, if a person cannot evoke any emotions in social environments, if he tries to fulfill the demands of the environment in these environments, if he does not belong to any group and prefers to live alone, he can have different levels of social levels.
On the other hand, if there is no physical activity that excites you and you are unable to feel emotions toward physically satisfying activities, you may have varying degrees of physical anhedonia. In addition, it is possible to determine the level of anhedonia on a scale. The 14-item Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Rating Scale (SHAPS), created in 1995, is considered valid for this purpose.
What are the symptoms and causes of anhedonia?
Symptoms of this condition include lack of enjoyment in life, apathy, inability to enjoy previously pleasurable activities, excessive sleepiness or insomnia, excessive food cravings or lack of appetite, weakness and exhaustion, lack of concentration, depressed mood, slow perception and movement includes. When we look at the reasons, we again encounter a wide spectrum. Factors such as decreased pleasure level after using substances (development of tolerance), withdrawal from the outside world after trauma, genetic predisposition, mood changes due to side effects of various drugs, tendency to anhedonia due to hormonal changes, changes in the body due to chronic diseases and low socioeconomic level known to be associated with anhedonia.
Treatment of the disease of lack of enjoyment of life
Let’s say that we observed the presence of anhedonia in ourselves. Is it possible to change, how to deal with this situation? Given the many different causes of anhedonia, there is no single definitive solution. It seems that it is necessary to consult a specialist for medical and psychological reasons in order to correctly identify and solve the situation. On the other hand, when we look at the positive influence method tested by Craske et al. (2019) as a general solution proposal, we see that the study gives a positive result.
This method is generally used to describe situations that evoke positive feelings in our lives, to increase our ability to recognize the positive components in ourselves by encountering various events in our lives, to do love and gratitude meditations for this purpose, and to be spiritually generous. to develop gratitude to those around us, to life. It aims to establish a systematic view from a single point. The beauty of the positive affect method is that we can apply it to our own lives. By making conscious efforts to realize the positive elements in our lives, we ensure that our brains are physically formed in this direction.
The main reason for this is that we can physically develop these regions by activating the corresponding parts of our brain more. What we have to do is focus on the positive things in our lives every day until this situation becomes a habit with conscious effort. If we exercise, if we imagine the effects of exercise on our body, we activate our reward mechanism and we can say that we are currently exercising. If we listen to music, we observe the effects of music on our body and try to feel the music we listen to as much as possible. While eating, take a moment to slow down and focus on the taste of the food. By doing these things, it is possible to shape our mind in the direction we want.
Anhedonia is actually a condition that we all know and experience to varying degrees.
When certain illnesses occur, getting help may be the best option. In cases where it arises from conscious or unconscious indifference to life, the solution stands before our eyes. Just as we have trained ourselves to be apathetic and dulled the relevant mental regions over time, we can strengthen our minds in this direction over time by trying to live life to the fullest and see the positives.
The article was taken from the Facebook page of Yusif Isayev
#anhedonia #Freedom