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Imagine you are out for dinner at your favorite restaurant and the waiter seats you at the best table. It’s nice and quiet, so you can have a pleasant conversation with your partner. The table is also right next to a window with great views. You drink your wine and enjoy some delicious food. The dinner lasts a few hours. Do you think you would enjoy the evening more if you sat at the nice table all the time, or if you were sent to the back of the restaurant from time to time where it was crowded and noisy?
“Well, that’s a stupid question,” you’re probably thinking. Who would want to go somewhere rowing if they had a beautiful place right where they were? That’s certainly what intuition suggests. But it is wrong. Studies show that people enjoy the good things in life (like listening to music or getting a relaxing massage) more if they break them up into smaller pieces.
A nice table is pleasant, but the joy of the first time fades with time. The reason? Habit It’s the tendency of our brain to respond less and less to things that are constant, that don’t change. As we become accustomed to the pleasant aspects of our lives, both big (a loving spouse, a comfortable home, a good job) and small (a great view, a delicious dish), we notice and appreciate them less. Unless, that is, you break the experience. Moving to the more complex restaurant for a while (perhaps to visit the bathroom) will encourage relaxation, making the luxury of your window seat more noticeable.
As another example, consider a holiday. A few years ago one of us (Tali) went on a work trip to a sunny resort in the Dominican Republic. Her mission was to find out what made people happy on holiday and why. She interviewed people about their experiences and asked them to fill out surveys. When the details were in, she noticed one word that kept coming up: at the start. The holidays spoke of the joy of “seeing the ocean for the first time”, the “first dip in the pool”, the “first sip of holiday cock”. The first appearance was very important. You can’t get used to the first one.
Since first things tend to happen earlier on vacation, Tali looked to see if people had a better time at the beginning of their trip. Fortunately, the major travel company she was working with asked customers around the world to rate how they felt during their vacation. Crunching those numbers revealed that joy peaked at 43 hours in. At the end of the second day, after people got their bearings, it was the time they were happy. After that it was all downhill.
You could get the most out of several small trips spread out throughout the year, rather than one long getaway
That’s not to say they were miserable by the end. Even when they returned home, many of them still benefited from the warm promise of a holiday. However, less than a week passed before they quickly adjusted to home life – work, school runs, bills. Within seven days, it was hard to detect any effect of the time away from home on their mood.
This evidence suggests that you may benefit most from a few small trips spread out throughout the year, rather than a long getaway. That way, you will get the most out of the first gels, not to mention the satisfaction you expect, which you will experience more often.
This applies much more generally than holidays, of course. For example, it was found that people who were given a massage with breaks in between enjoyed it more than those who were not interrupted. Anything that’s great will become at least a little less great over time. Why not take a break, and enjoy it again?
What about unpleasant experiences? Should you share those up too? Imagine you had to clean a toilet. Would you rather do it in one go or take small breaks every 10 minutes? Or perhaps your upstairs neighbor Marvin is practicing the drums, and you can hear the disturbing noise loud and clear. Should you make Marvin a cup of coffee so you both can have a break from the bang bang bang two drumsticks?
Most people want to tolerate the unpleasantness in chunks. When researchers asked people if they would like to take a break from smelling bad or do it all in one go, 90 people said, “Breaks, please!”. The vast majority – 82 out of 119 – also said they wanted a break from annoying noise. They did so because they believed the experience would be less embarrassing with an inhaler.
It seems like a reasonable prediction, but it is not correct. When people were actually exposed to the noise, those who took time off suffered more overall. The interruption disrupted their natural inclination to the unwelcome stimulus. The lesson? If you have to do an unpleasant task it would probably be wise not to cut it up. When you come back, the smell will be worse, the noise louder, and the overall experience grimmer.
There is some folk wisdom incorporated here, perhaps. He is familiar with attempts to “get over it”, or “rip off the Band-Aid” – and in “absence makes the heart grow fonder” we have, perhaps, age-old advice that recognizes the impact of the procedures i. relationships. But even though they exist in our language, we seem to have difficulty overcoming our intellect. The results of the psychological experiments are clear, however, and paying attention to the powerful effect of routine may help us all experience a little less pain and pleasure.
• Cass Sunstein is a university professor at Harvard and the author of Nudge. Tali Sharot yes professor with cognitive neuroscience at UCL. His current book, See Again: The Power That Was Always Announced published Bridge Street Press.
Further Reading
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (HarperCollins, £9.99)
10% Happier by Dan Harris (Yellow Kite, £10.99)
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (Penguin, £12.99)
